


Girl Meets Flash

by llowyn_maelai



Series: The Timeline Is Malleable [1]
Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Arrowverse Character Camios, Back to the Future References, Barry Allen Needs More Friends, Brief One-sided Barry Allen/Iris West, Canon-adjacent, Eddie Thawne Lives, F/M, Fix-It, Foul Language, Not for Barry/Linda shippers, Not for WestAllen fans, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Rare Pairings, Slow Burn, Star Trek References, We Respect Iris West Here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-14
Updated: 2020-09-12
Packaged: 2021-03-03 21:21:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 37,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24712285
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/llowyn_maelai/pseuds/llowyn_maelai
Summary: Marianna "Mana" Rice is a friend of Iris' from college, who works as a part-time barista at CC Jitters, while also being a published Science Fiction author.  She's a nerd by trade that likes to cracks jokes - not all of which are that funny - is pretty laid back and goes with the flow, and curses like a sailor.Having been swept by the Dark Matter that rolled over the city, Mana woke from an accident after a few days, assumingly unaffected like many others had been that night.On a morning several months post-explosion, she is saved by The Flash on her way to work and is totally smitten by the green eyes that stare back at her from behind a mask...
Relationships: Barry Allen/Original Female Character(s)
Series: The Timeline Is Malleable [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1786675
Comments: 23
Kudos: 45





	1. Static Charge

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks go to [enchantedlightningwrites](/users/enchantedlightningwrites) for beta-reading this madness and being patient with me. I appreciate you. :D

* * *

If it wasn’t one damn thing, it was another. 

Today’s damn thing is brought to you by the word “Gunman”, and resulted in Mana Rice being late for work for the first time in the eight months that she had been working at CC Jitters. 

One moment, she was halted by a slowly-growing crowd of bystanders, watching a standoff between a pair of squad cars and a single crazed lunatic with a Glock across the street, raving about something she couldn’t hear over the hum of speculation.

The next she was trapped in a pair of red leather-clad arms and surrounded by the scent of ozone, with the familiar, unpleasant taste of copper in her mouth. And then her ears caught up to the sound of a fired gun’s echo.

She angled her head upward, sending a few perpetually loose strawberry blonde wisps backward, to focus on a sharp jawline and profile, halved by a cowl but still allowing access to view the dusted hazel gaze ringed in living gold. When she noticed the bullet hole over his shoulder in the concrete wall, right where she’d been standing, her fingers reflexively dug into the forearms around her.

“You okay? Breathe.”

Her mind was wiped clear by those three words that reverberated through her limbs and eardrums, and she took the suggestion. Mana looked back up at The Flash, unable to prevent the faint rose from painting her cheeks. “Y-yeah,” she stuttered and ordered her mind to make her hands let go. “Thanks,” she forced out and took a half step back from him. 

He gave her a slight smile, then seemed to reappear across the street, already holding the gun and pinning the assaulter to the wall. Strands of hair tickled the back of her neck from the sudden gust of wind, raising gooseflesh on her skin, and making her shudder involuntarily. She braced herself on the wall, as she knew that her legs were in no shape for holding herself up, ready to collapse in shock. 

In her dazed state, her mind suggested the notion about a blog that dealt with Flash sightings. She had reached for her phone and cast her sight around for her savior, only to notice that he had vanished in a flash.

Mana’s shoulder’s drooped at that, both for the lost opportunity and for the terrible pun. 

“Dammit,” she said to no one aloud and dug for the blog link anyway. Once she found it, she started making a comment on the newest post from earlier in the day.

> Gunman: Zero. Flash: _N_. Faster than a speeding bullet, indeed. #savedbytheFlash

Mana took a picture of the bullet hole and attached it to the post, locking her phone and shoving it back into her back pocket. She swore then, and took off at a jog towards Jitters. For whatever reason, she seemed to always know the exact and accurate time without even needing to look at a watch or clock. She prayed that she’d be cut some slack for being late today. “Hopefully.”

* * *

During the particularly slow post-breakfast lull, Mana took a moment to roll her left shoulder, sighing in relief at the delicious crack it made. She saw Iris wince out of the corner of her eye, and that made the blonde smirk a little. “Sorry,” she offered, but clearly was not sorry.

“I don’t understand people needing to crack their joints,” the brunette said, shaking her head slightly. “Eddie does it too and it drives me nuts.”

“Dunno about him, but It makes me feel looser. Eases tension and tightness,” Mana explained. 

“You’re going to wind up with early-onset arthritis.”

“Probably,” Mana agreed, eyes twinkling. Her smile faltered a little when Iris’ did. “What?”

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Iris asked of her, one finely-penciled brow arching a little. “You were almost shot this morning. It’s normal to be at least a little off after something like that.” 

“Normalcy is for the mundane, not for the acclaimed.” The blonde waved Iris off with false bravado and a wide smile, showcasing the slightly uneven set of her teeth. “Man, I’m fine. I might have jarred my bad shoulder a little on the Flash’s hard body.” Her smile turned a little suggestive and she wiggled her eyebrows. “Worth it.”

“God, I’m so jealous!” Iris slapped her other arm and laughed, while Mana cackled and turned her head back towards the counter to help the next guest.

“Hey Mana.” Cisco smiled winningly at her. If he had heard the exchange, he didn’t show it.

“Hey yourself. The usual?”

She watched him shake his head slightly. “Actually, can you add an extra shot?”

“Long day already? It’s barely after eleven!” She stepped to the side to set up the espresso machine with a double instead of the single.

“Pulled another all-nighter,” he confessed sheepishly, tucking some strands of dark hair behind the shells of his ears.

Mana made a disapproving sound in the back of her throat. She certainly understood those. It hadn’t been more than a few years out of college, where all-nighters had been the catch of the day. While the machine was percolating, she busied herself with pouring someone else a coffee refill and offered them a smile, before turning her attention back to Cisco. “Tough gig?”

A flurry of different minute emotions flitted across his face that she couldn’t keep up with, but she caught something that looked like ‘worry’ or ‘concern’ before he schooled his features into a somewhat forced smile. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

Mana poured both espresso shots into a sturdy paper cup and topped it off with coffee, adding steamed milk and a bit of foam on top. Before she could put a lid on the cup, she saw Cisco furrow his eyebrows at his phone, then look up at her suddenly. “‘Sup?” 

He tilted his head to the right, absently tucking hair behind his ear again. “Um,” he started. 

She raised both of her eyebrows at him in askance.

“See, I dunno how to ask this, so I’ll just show you,” he blurted cryptically, and held up his phone towards her with the post from earlier in the day, from the ‘Saved By The Flash’ Blog. “Was that you?”

Mana glanced at the device and then back towards the cup on the counter, smiling slightly, settling the lid of the coffee cup in place. “Guilty as charged.”

“You good, Mana?” He paused, lips pursed a little. “Like, for real?”

The blonde offered a crooked smile to him. “Yeah, yeah, I’m good. Great, even.”

She noticed the extra couple of dollars Cisco was trying to offer her, and she waved him off, grabbing the rest. “Put that shit away. Extra shot is on me today.”

“Best. Barista. Ever,” Cisco insisted, his smile more honest and bright. As he took the cup from her, he smirked then, arching a brow and pointing at the cup. “What’s this I see?”

“Dunno,” Mana lied with a wink. “Could be a symbol of some kind.”

“Dude, I _knew_ you had to be a fellow nerd, Mana,” he said, eying the small Star Trek logo at the end of his name with a smiley face inside of it. “That earns you a tip.” 

“‘Don’t take any wooden nickels’?” she fired back with a snort.

“That, too,” he pointed at her, grinning and shaking his head, before shoving the extra couple of bucks into the tip jar and nodded to her, holding up the cup.

Mana threw him a peace sign as he walked towards the exit.

“So, that was adorably nerdy,” Iris mused next to her, leaning on the counter. 

“Cisco has hair that I just wanna...” Mana looked back at the other woman, motioning with her hands as if she wanted to run them through something, and she saw Iris nod in agreement. “He’s got that cute geek thing going also. And if it keeps him coming back, what’s the harm?”

“Sound logic,” Iris agreed, then went about helping someone who was calling for a refill at a table.

* * *

As is wont to happen, when some people manage to cheat Death, they begin becoming obsessed. Either with trying to find out if it was a fluke and tempting Fate again or with the object that saved them. In Mana’s case, it was the latter. In the following days, she was becoming hell-bent on trying to catch another solid look at The Flash. She had even taken to trying to catch him at scenes of an altercation, though it was clearly in vain since he never seemed to hold still for long.

Whenever there was a slow moment during work, she was furiously refreshing the blog, reading other sightings attached to the posts. Iris had questioned her about it, and she had been caught in trying to lie her way out of not having a low-key crush on the hero.

“C’mon.” Iris poked her in the shoulder, smirking. “You can admit it to me, you know.”

“There’s nothing to admit to.” The blonde cast her blue eyes out the window and away from the look Iris was trying to bore into her.

“Whaaaaat are we not admitting to?” Iris’ friend Barry seemed to appear nearby, most assuredly out of the ether, and Mana nearly tripped into a table at her surprise when she backed up.

“ _Jeez_ , Barry. You’re like a wraith sometimes!” Iris swiped at his arm, and he winced at the power behind it, rubbing where she’d smacked him. “Mana was trying to lie her way out of--”

“--Never you mind it,” Mana interrupted, covering Iris’ mouth and grinning at the CSI. She felt more than heard Iris protest against her hand, and she shot the woman a look before letting go. “Girl talk.”

“That excuse won’t work on him, Mana,” Iris quipped, eyes alight with mirth. “We talked a lot of Girl Talk when we were kids.”

Barry blanched at the unsaid insinuation. “Wow, thanks for that.”

Iris waved him off with a smile, and Mana watched him smile back at her, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. _She probably doesn’t even realize what she said and how it could be taken._ Mana filed that away for later scrutiny.

“If it helps, I talked a lot of Guy Talk growing up, too. Much to my chagrin.” Mana winked at Barry when he raised both eyebrows at her, the smile becoming more genuine as his tension eased.

“Do you have a brother?”

Mana shook her head. “Only child. I was just a tomboy with mostly male friends.” She glanced over at the opening door and gave a wave to a patron, zoning out on the quiet conversation that the two of them were having.

When she glanced back at them, there was something in the way that Barry was looking down at Iris as they talked that gave her pause, and her brows narrowed in thought.

_That jawline…_ Mana felt herself leaning a little backward and hand coming up horizontally to block some of Barry’s face from view. _Have I seen it before?_

Before she could get a clear vision, Iris had ducked under her hand and smiled at her. 

“You okay in there?”

“Absolutely,” Mana nodded, carding her fingers through her loose hair and laughing quietly. When she looked away from Iris to Barry, her forced laughter started to die away at the look he was giving her; somewhere between guardedness and curiosity. 

Perhaps she was imagining it.

Mana cleared her throat and rolled her left shoulder again, which had become a nervous tick of hers that she couldn’t stop, no matter how much she wanted to. “Decaf, Barry?”

“Huh?” he replied dumbly, then seemed to remember himself. “Yes-- I mean, no-- I mean how could you tell?” 

The way he stumbled over his words made the strain in her smile melt, smoothing it into something real. “Just a hunch,” she said and slipped behind the counter to pour him a mug, while Iris wandered away to meet with Eddie, who had come in to surprise her.

She watched Barry watching the two of them being a couple, and part of her felt bad for the guy. It was clear that he had a thing for the petite beauty, and it was slowly chipping away at him to see her with someone else. Mana knew a little something about that, and it felt like crap.

“Here you go,” she said gently to catch his attention and saw him startle a little. 

As Barry turned away from Eddie and Iris, he plastered on a smile, which ebbed away when he saw the look on her own face. “W-what?”

Mana said nothing, softening her look and smile, then leaned on the counter to watch the couple. She saw Barry look back their way as well out of the corner of her eye. “It won’t last,” she offered with kindness, indicating them with a jut of her chin. “Physical attraction only goes so far.”

She heard him sigh quietly. “Is it that obvious?” he muttered under his breath, the barest hint of a blush coloring the apples of his cheeks in an attractive way.

“Only to someone who’s been there.” She patted him on the shoulder a few times. “School your features there, Mister Allen.” As he did so in a blink, she nodded in approval. “Atta boy.”

“Thanks,” he said and started to fish for his wallet, handing over cash for the coffee, and Mana gave him his change, which he dumped into the tip jar, before heading away from the counter. 

* * *

Barry settled down at the table with Cisco and Caitlin, who were both having a quiet discussion. “Hey.”

Cisco lifted his head slightly in both acknowledgment and question.

Barry cast his eyes over towards Mana, watching her having a light conversation with the person in line, who seemed to lighten up as she talked to him, both laughing at some joke one of them made. He looked back at his friends. “What do you know about her?”

Caitlin cantered her head to the side a little. “What do you mean?”

“About Mana? She’s awesome.” Cisco smiled, looking over at her. “Not only does she make a mean espresso and gets it perfect every time, but she’s also a fellow nerd.” Cisco took a sip from his drink and swallowed, looking back at the two of them. “She’s not like a scientist or doctor or anything like us, but she’s got the street nerd creds.”

Barry must have had a confused look on his face because Cisco sighed.

“What I mean is, her working knowledge of movies, comic books, and video games is up there. She’s also basically got the whole Back To The Future trilogy memorized.”

“You know her pretty well, man.” Barry took a sip from his drink and appreciated that it was just sweet enough and not overdone like most people seem to do.

“She was also affected by the particle accelerator,” Caitlin added mildly, sipping at her own coffee.   
  
Barry stared at Caitlin. “She’s a meta?”

“Nah, man.” Cisco waved it off, looking over at the blonde, who was singing along with the music playing in the cafe and smiled a little. “She has traces of dark matter, but the amounts weren’t really anything that raised our suspicions.”

“Wellll…” Caitlin drew out. “Dr. Wells did kind of take a passing interest in her records, though,” Caitlin looked over at Mana now, which caused Barry to look back at her.

“Why?”

“Check it,” Cisco said. “Apparently, someone had called 911 about her because she’d been knocked over the railing and fell down half a flight of stairs when the wave of dark matter rolled over the city.”

Barry’s eyes widened at that. “She _what_?” 

“Right?” Cisco nodded a few times. “Other than being knocked out and having a mild shoulder sprain, she was fine, which she shouldn’t have been. But that’s not even the best part.”

Barry jerked around to look at Cisco. “None of that sounds fun at all…”

Cisco didn’t pay any attention to his words and kept talking, a smile widening on his face. “While she was unconscious for those few days, the clocks around her apparently kept failing to keep proper time.” 

He looked right at Barry, eyes twinkling in excitement. “Even the analog ones.”

Barry absently sipped at his coffee again, watching her more carefully. None of what Cisco had told him made any sense. She wasn’t classified as a meta, when time itself seemed to go haywire around her when she was unconscious? He, himself, had been causing electrical malfunctions when he’d been in his coma. Though he knew why now, doctors were still baffled by it and had apparently been glad to release him to S.T.A.R. Labs when Joe authorized it.

“Apparently it was a fluke occurrence though,” Caitlin spoke up again, standing from her bar stool, and Cisco followed suit. “We and Dr. Wells have been keeping an eye on her since she started working here a couple of months after you came to us in your coma.”

Barry stood up and drained the last of his drink, then turned to grab Caitlin’s empty mug as well as his own. “I’ll meet you outside,” he said, indicating the cups and they nodded, walking out the door.

Barry took the mugs over to the counter and smiled at Mana, setting them down.

“Aww, you didn’t need to bring these over.” She smiled at him, eyes crinkling slightly at the corners as she smiled, tucking a few loose strands of blonde behind her ear.

Barry shook his head, smiling. “Least I could do,” he said.

“The least you could do is nothing,” she quipped, wagging her finger at him.

“Yes,” he nodded, smiling. “That is true.”

“I appreciate it though.” She moved to grab the mug handles and accidentally brushed his knuckle.

Barry and Mana both felt a slight shock at the contact. 

Normally, a static shock is nothing to write home about. It happens all the time, especially when there’s a lot of dry weather like there was that day. It also happens when there’s friction between items, like when you scuff your feet on the carpet and then poke your sibling, and they squawk from the shock. Or when you take a rubber balloon, blow it up and tie it off, and then rub it on your hair. Your hairs raise up after being charged as they repel themselves from one another.

This was not just some natural occurring static, especially not to a Speedster.

They looked at one another in surprise, and at the same moment, somehow became very aware of one another.

Mana shook out her hand and laughed at him, which pulled Barry out of the moment. “Shocking development,” she snarked, grabbed the mugs, and turned away from him towards the sink to begin washing them.

Barry backed up and almost into someone, spinning around to avoid them just in time before he moved towards the exit.

* * *

Mana would have thought that going to the bank was a safe, mundane thing to do. 

It usually was, at least until things changed in January. Now, in the midst of November, crime had skyrocketed, despite the rumblings of a masked vigilante in red leather that was faster than the speed of sound and light. If anything, more crazies were coming out of the woodwork, in hopes of being the exception to the rule, or flying under his radar.

And if the muzzle buried between Mana’s shoulderblades was any indication, she had chosen the wrong place and time to do her banking. _God, am I a gun magnet now or something?_

“Stay quiet and don’t be a hero,” another masked robber muttered in her ear and she stilled, her mouth snapping shut, not having noticed that it had even been open until that moment.

She watched from the partially obstructed position she was in, as The Flash made his appearance and disarmed both of the other two robbers in a blink. She heard the other one behind her take a quick breath, and she reacted.

Mana jammed her elbow backward into his chest, grabbed the forearm that was holding the gun around the side of her arm, and yanked it forward with all of her might. She used her back as a fulcrum and bent forward, hurling the assailant onto the marbled floor in front of her with a yell.

The Flash turned his head towards the commotion and gave a look of surprise, before reappearing over the robber and snatching the pistol from his grip before he could try again to shoot. “Thanks,” his vibrating vocals said to her, grinning.

“Turnabout is fair play,” Mana looked up at him, smiling, blue eyes blown wide. “Think I’m gonna faint now,” she muttered before she pitched forward when the adrenaline in her body cut out.

The last thing she would recall was strong arms wrapping around her, and the scent of ozone once again, mingling with a clean, pleasant cologne that reminded her of spring rain and something else she couldn’t quite place before she gave into the darkness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At the core, this is a Fix-It Fiction, starting around S1 Ep11 (The Sound & The Fury). I want to set a few expectations from the onset.
> 
> One. I'm not a huge fan of the WestAllen canon pairing. Don't get me wrong; I love Iris as a character, and I mean her no ill will. I just don't think that she is The One for Barry. 
> 
> Two. I intend to (eventually) save Eddie from dying. I didn't think it was necessary for him to die in order to 'solve the issue' of Eobard Thawne. Eddie will live. Which leads me to the next point. 
> 
> Three. The character Patty Spivot will not be in this fanfiction. Patty is a neat character and served her purpose in canon as a fill-in for Joe's lost partner, as well as a love interest for Barry. But since Eddie will live here, Patty is not necessary for this work of fiction.
> 
> Lastly. I promise not to just rehash every little thing about the series. I may go into detail about certain key points that will assist with the plot of this project, and twist others to suit its' need, but I'll try to keep the "reruns" to a minimum.
> 
> Future notes will not be as long. lol.


	2. Close Calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mana wakes up in the last place she ever expected to be, has a conversation that she never wanted to have, learns Barry is a pretty good singer and that Caitlin can't hold her liquor.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, thanks to [enchantedlightningwrites](/users/enchantedlightningwrites) for being the void I scream into. <3
> 
> Edited for a few typos I found. Oops.

* * *

It had only been a couple of months since The Flash had made his debut in Central City. He barely slowed down long enough to let people get a look at him, and with good reason. There were plenty of blurry photos of a red streak with trailing tendrils of electricity out there for all to see, but so far, none of them had been a full or even partial shot of his face. He certainly didn’t have groupies - perhaps aside from Iris and her blog - and that may or may not have been by design. Barry would never admit to that, though. So it was certainly a first for him, having someone falling for The Flash.

Or rather, _into_ him.

“Crap,” Barry said under his breath, as he caught Mana before she could face plant into the marble of the bank lobby.

“Crap what,” Cisco responded in his earpiece. “What happened?”

Barry ran her out of the bank and to a secluded spot away from prying eyes. “Mana saved me from getting shot.”

“She did?”

“Yeah.” Barry cast his eyes around to make sure no one was around. “I didn’t see the third gunman behind a pillar, and he was using her as a shield.”

“What an ass,” Cisco spat. Barry could hear the disdain in his voice. “She okay?”

Barry checked her over, feeling for a pulse at the left side of her neck and sighed in relief. “Unconscious, but fine. It was pretty badass, actually.” Barry smirked down at her, tucking some of her loose blonde strands out of her face. “She flipped the guy right over her shoulder before he could get a clean shot at me. And then she passed out.”

“I knew she was a boss,” Barry could hear the smirk in Cisco’s voice, and he nodded emphatically. “Bring her back here?”

“What?” Barry blurted out. “No. Why?”

“Uhh, cause she’s unconscious, and you don’t know where she lives?”

Barry sputtered at that. “Dude, my identity…” he paused, and sighed, shaking his head. “I’ll take her to the hospital or something.”

“It’s alright to bring her here, Barry,” Dr. Wells’ voice cut into the comms. 

That gave Barry pause. Was he serious? “I thought that the more people who knew my identity, the more they would be targeted.”

“I’m sure Miss Rice can be trusted.”

What was going on here? Of all the people to allow to know that Barry Allen was The Flash, having Mana find out was certainly not at all on the list. And having Wells be the one to say it was okay made Barry just the least bit suspicious. But Cisco was right; he didn’t know where she lived, and taking her to the hospital was overkill for a fainting spell. He certainly couldn’t just leave her in the alley way, either, so what other option did he have, really?

Barry scooped her up in a bridal carry, and ran off towards S.T.A.R. Labs.

* * *

“Why are you playing that song again?”

“Hey, it worked for Barry, didn’t it?”

Those words, along with the chorus of ‘Poker Face’ were the first words that Mana heard upon coming out of the darkness. She grimaced at the decibels that weren’t all that loud, but when one is disoriented and just waking up, one is generally sensitive to their surroundings.

“N’guh,” she stated intelligently.

“Hi there.” Cisco smiled down at her from above, warm brown eyes twinkling in a mix of triumph and relief.

“Loud,” she forced out through a rasp and a cough.   
  
Cisco seemed to think it was his voice that was too loud, so he tried his greeting again in lower tones.

It was Caitlin that actually understood what she had really meant and turned down the music, before coming into her patient’s view. “Better?” she chanced in a soothing tone.

“Th’ks,” Mana slurred, wincing at the way her tongue stuck in her throat, then reached slowly to run her fingers through her mussed hair. The other hand with an IV stuck into the vein atop it coiled around her midsection. “Where,” she halted in another cough, then cleared her throat rather painfully. “Hmm..” she ground out. Her internal clock told her she had been unconscious for two hours and seventeen minutes, which concerned her. 

Cisco held up a small pink plastic cup with a bendy straw in it, close to her lips.

“Just take a sip,” Caitlin warned. 

Mana took the straw gingerly and sipped just enough to wet her mouth and throat, then pulled back. “Thanks,” she rasped, swallowing again compulsively. “What happened?”

“Ah, well…” Cisco said, side-eying the doctor on the other side of the bed, who looked concerned. “So like, check it.” He paused for a moment, then smiled lopsidedly. “You’re at S.T.A.R. Labs, and, uhhh…”

The location made her hazy blue eyes clear in an instant. “I’m at _where_ now?” 

The brunette doctor stepped in front of Cisco, gently shoving him backward, giving him a look that told him to stop talking. She looked down at the blonde and smiled slightly, faltering for a moment. “You were in a bit of … an incident?” The last bit came out slightly like a question, more than an affirmation.

“You don’t sound sure.” Mana arched a brow at her, the ghost of her own smile lifting the left side of her lips.

“Well, it’s kind of hard to explain.”

Mana fumbled her free hand through the guard rails of the bed, reaching for something. “Does this bed tilt-up?” She asked after a few moments of not finding the controls.

Caitlin tapped a foot control on the floor, and the bed started to incline, enough so that Mana wasn’t flat on her back but reclining at a comfortable angle.

“Perfect.” Mana adjusted herself in the bed slightly to a more comfortable position. “Couple questions, then.”

Cisco nodded, folding his arms over his chest. “Shoot.”

Mana angled her head slowly towards him, a few strands of hair slipping across her cheek. “Why S.T.A.R. Labs, and not a hospital?”

Cisco and Caitlin shared another look of apprehension that didn’t slip past Mana, before looking back at her.

“What’s the last thing you remember?” Cisco asked carefully.

_A bank…_

_Flipping some masked douche over her shoulder._

_Pain._

_Red leather and green eyes…_

“Ah, yes. I remember passing out at the bank, and being caught by The Flash.” 

There was another shared look between them, which was starting to try Mana’s patience, along with being at one of two places she never wanted to set foot into. “Again. Why am I _here_?”

Caitlin frowned prettily. “Uhh..”

“I asked The Flash to bring you here.”

Two pairs of brown eyes and a pair of blue ones turned to look at the handicapped man that the voice belonged to.

“Dr. Wells,” Caitlin and Cisco said in unison. Mana remained silent and stony-faced.

Wells wheeled closer to her bedside and folded his hands in his lap. 

Mana looked upwards, wincing unintentionally at the halogen lamps, then looked back over at him. “After you told me not to contact you?” She sighed, rolling her left shoulder. “If you know The Flash, why not have him… I dunno… zip me to a hospital, or to my apartment?” She shot Dr. Wells a glare that would incinerate a lesser man. “Seeing as how I know for a fact that you know where I live.”

Wells’ mouth twitched up in a half-smile. “Curious, isn’t it?”

“Okay,” Cisco butted in finally, pointing from her to Wells and back again. “Do you guys know each other or something? Like … beyond Jitters?”

Mana looked away from Dr. Wells, pursing her lips, refusing to answer, and looking livid for the first time either Caitlin or Cisco could recall.

“My wife’s niece,” Wells offered without preamble. 

Mana snorted in derision. “Says the _stranger_ who’s barely been a footnote in the novel trilogy of my life for the last decade and a half.” She turned her head back to face him, features set in disdain. 

Caitlin cleared her throat nervously. “Should we give you two a minute?”

“No need,” Mana said automatically, eyes narrowing slightly. She threw back the sheet that was over her and started to pick at the Tegaderm that was holding her IV in place. “I’m leaving.”

Caitlin stepped up to try to stop her, but Mana had already pulled the needle from her vein and was shoving a wad of tissue over it to stanch the blood. “Bandaid?” she said towards Caitlin.

“Slow down, Mana,” Wells spoke up, wheeling a little closer to her.

“Fuck off,” she spat back. If she had been a cat, her hackles would be raised and her ears flat back against her sunkissed mess of hair. “The faster I leave, the faster we can get back to our pact of not speaking.” She took the bandage from Caitlin and covered her IV site. “Which, as I recall, was _your idea_ , not mine.” 

Mana slid off the biobed and took a few rushed steps towards the door to grab her purse, but had to catch herself on the frame.

“Whoa, whoa.” Cisco was right behind her, holding her arm. “You are _not_ okay, Mana.”

“I’m fine,” she muttered, pulling her arm away from him, not unkindly, and offered him a pained smile.

“Still Anemic, then,” Wells said from a spot still by the bed but angled towards her.

“Like you give a shit,” she replied. Mana saw Caitlin’s frown in the reflection of the glass next to her, and she forced a more convincing smile. “I’ll be fine after some Hibiscus tea or a spinach salad or something, don’t worry.” In hindsight, Mana knew better than to start walking so fast after standing up. It always left her unsteady on her feet and with the feeling of her blood pressure tanking, with a tingling in her scalp and darkness on the edge of her vision. 

But she needed to leave. Like, now.

Mana straightened up from her lean and took a few more careful steps, then picked up her pace. She got to the doorway arch of the cortex and paused, looking left to right. She chose right and seemed to luck out with finding the elevators after a short walk. “Thank God,” she whispered to herself. Once she was out of the elevator and out of the building, she took a few moments to collect herself and redo her ponytail.

“What a fucking day, man,” she snorted, thumbing through her apps for Uber and putting in a call for one to pick her up. “Knew I shoulda stayed in bed.”

Her phone chirped up at her and she glanced at the text message, then slapped her forehead. “Ah, damn.” She dialed a number on her phone and held it to her ear. “Sorry, Harlan. I missed our meeting.”

_“What happened? I’ve been trying to get you for an hour!”_

“I, uh…” she paused, wincing. “Had a… family… thing…” she finished lamely, grimacing.

_“You have family?”_

Mana’s expression blanked. “In a manner of speaking.” She forced a smile, even though he couldn’t see it. “It’s nothing. I’m on my way to the office. Thirty minutes?”

_“Don’t be late.”_

“Only if the Uber sucks,” she quipped, then ended the call before Harlan could get in another word. “Yep. Shoulda stayed in bed.”

* * *

The rest of the week passed by for Mana like slow-dripping molasses in the throes of the winter solstice. Since Iris had quit Jitters and started working at CC Picture News last week, work didn’t seem quite as lively. And though that meant more hours for the other baristas that were up for grabs, having one fewer comrade-in-arms also meant slightly fewer visits from Iris’ almost-brother. For some reason, that had made Mana a little sad. With the recent confrontation with her uncle still on repeat in her mind, she could have used someone to talk about it with, aside from those who had had a front-row seat to the confrontation. 

On the plus side, work was now over and she had the following day off. “Ahh, it’s drink-o-clock, finally.”

One of the other baristas laughed quietly next to her. “It’s been a long week, huh?”

“For real.” Mana nodded, pulling her purse out of its cubby in the break room and cramming her black apron into it. “Later!”

“Bye Mana!”

The brisk night air blasted Mana in the face as she left out the back door, simultaneously shocking her mind and making her shiver. It was refreshing and she took a deep breath, exhaling and idly watched the visible air dissipate. 

As she walked away from work, she looked down at what she had on, trying to decide if she wanted to bother changing first or not. Under her cropped navy leather bomber jacket was a sleeveless mock turtleneck in black, with silver piping at the arms and neck, with a long-sleeved white undershirt. Acid-washed denim skinny jeans tucked into a pair of mid-calf Doc Marten’s that had seen better days.

Mana reached into her purse and pulled out a pair of silver necklaces and put them on, and then deemed her outfit good enough, before ducking into the bar and heading to the counter and taking a seat in a spot where she could watch the stage. She made short work of a duo of tequila shots and shoved the lime wedge into her mouth, wincing but grateful for the acidity. 

An added bonus: she had apparently arrived just in time to see Caitlin calling Barry to go up to the stage for a song. She ordered an amaretto sour and sipped at it, joining in with the crowd calling his name.

Mana nearly spit it out and started cracking up as “Summer Nights” started.

It was pretty surprising just how decent the two of them were at the song. Or, she imagines that Caitlin probably had a decent voice, but the poor woman was obviously a few sheets into the wind. Despite Mana’s own rain cloud of issues, she found that the dynamic duo and the alcohol were working their magic on her tension, easing it to a dull buzzing in the back of her mind that she could finally ignore for a little while.

When the song was done and Caitlin had headed off towards the restrooms, Mana plopped down on the vacant stool next to Barry, putting a glass of water down next to her half-polished drink. “Didn’t know you could sing, Barry.”

She watched him flush slightly before sliding a hand down his face. “Ah, haha.. How long have you been here?”

“Long enough to see Caitlin rally the bar to get you on stage.”

Barry shook his head, smiling crookedly. “How have you been?”

Mana offered him a cheeky grin. “Better now after that.” She saw his shoulders droop and he hid his face in his hands once more. “Hey, hey. It was good, relax!” She looked over at the DJ then back at Barry, before nudging him to get his attention. Once she had it, she held up a finger, downed the rest of her drink in one go, and cocked her head towards the stage. “Can’t have you feeling bad alone, huh?

Barry looked as though he was about to question her, but she was busy taking off her jacket and handing it to him. “Hold this.” Mana jumped off her stool and headed to the stage, putting in a song request of her own. She stepped up onto the stage, adjusting the mic stand down to her shorter stature. She glanced over at the DJ who nodded to her and she turned back to the front, tapping her left thigh a few times.

“ _We go together, better than birds of a feather, you and me… We change the weather, yeah… I'm feeling heat in December when you're 'round me..! I've been dancing on top of cars and stumbling out of bars… I follow you through the dark, can't get enough. You're the medicine and the pain, the tattoo inside my brain, and baby, you know it's obvious… I'm a sucker for you!_ ”

* * *

Caitlin leaned towards Barry. “Think she’s singing to th’ Flash,” she slurred.

Barry looked right at Caitlin, startled. “What? No way.”

“Think ‘bout it,” she said, trying her best to focus on his face. “How many times have y--*hic*--you saved her?

Barry did think about it, while he watched Mana. “I dunno, twice?”

He heard Caitlin snort at that. “Most people you save maybe once.” She reached for the glass of ice water near his arm and pounded down half of it. “Unless they’re named Iris,” she said pointedly, and Barry had the grace not to refute it, because she was right, as usual. 

He turned his head back to watch Mana more closely though, now that the seed had been planted. 

He’d been aware that someone had been following … or, trying to follow … the Flash for weeks, but he’d been too busy with the flavor of the week to pay much attention. A prickling of eyes on him as he zipped through the city that he hadn’t had the time to really look into. But now? Now he was curious to know why Mana was trying to get The Flash’s attention. Barry would have to consider it more fully later, deciding to focus on enjoying himself with his friend tonight. 

The crowd cheered for the woman who bowed, looking flush; from the alcohol or embarrassment, Barry couldn’t tell. He cheered along with them, clapping as she took a seat next to Caitlin and finishing off the rest of the water in the glass.

“Feel better now?” she asked of them both, and Barry nodded his head. 

Caitlin on the other hand was shaking hers slightly. “I don’t feel good.”

“Uh oh.” Mana and Barry both reached out to catch her before she slipped off of her stool. They managed to get her outside into the alley before she bent over and lost the contents of her stomach. 

Barry was supporting her while Mana had swiped her hair out of the way just in time.

“Get her home?” Mana said to him and Barry nodded his head. She muttered something to Caitlin who nodded once, then tied her hair back with her hairband.

“Thanks,” Barry said, then started to slowly walk Caitlin towards the street. He heard the door to the bar open and latch closed again, glanced over his shoulder to make sure, and then sped himself and Caitlin away towards the doctor’s apartment.

As Barry was helping Caitlin into bed and making sure she would be alright, he heard her ask him to stay until she fell asleep, which he gladly agreed to do.

“You should call her,” Caitlin said, while adjusting herself into a more comfortable position in her bed.

“Why is that?” Barry asked, humoring her. 

“She likes the Flash, and you’re the Flash. Ergo, she likes you.”

Barry snorted. “How can you still make a coherent comment like that after getting this wasted?”

“I’m kind of a genius,” Caitlin muttered through a yawn, before starting to snore softly.

Barry chuckled to himself and quietly let himself out of the apartment. He was left with a lot to think about. Instead of running home like he could have, maybe a walk was a good idea; it would give him time to work on the curious case of Mana Rice.

On the one hand, he did think that she was fun and upbeat. She had a knack for making people around her smile more genuinely, and for making people feel better. She seemed to brighten up whatever room she was in, and that counted for a lot. She was cute, too. 

On the other hand, she had only ever been friendly with him, as Barry Allen. Understanding and somehow perceptive about his feelings towards Iris, saying just what he had wanted someone to say. To be fair, he had only had polite conversation with her, nothing too deep or meaningful.

Barry shook his head. He should get to know her as himself, and keep his distance from her as the Flash. It wouldn’t do either of them any good if she was only interested in a hero, and not the man behind the mask. So that’s what he would do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, *the* karaoke scene. You'll notice a lack of Linda Park here, which is intentional. I like Linda as a character and I respect her, but for the purposes of this story, she won't make her entrance yet, and won't be in the same exact capacity when she does. Sorry Linda Fans!


	3. Revelations

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cisco finds out that Mana is more than just a barista, Mana and The Flash have another encounter, and Barry is distracted in the aftermath of it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks again, [enchantedlightningwrites](/users/enchantedlightningwrites) for being awesome!

* * *

It wasn’t enough that Mana was trying to balance her day job of slinging caffeinated beverages at people five days a week and trying to work through her next manuscript on her off-hours. She was also trying to find the time in there somewhere to build a social life, too. And it just wasn’t working. Especially not with a demanding editor and publicist like she had.

“Harlan, take a breath,” she finally said through her AirPods, resting her elbows on the table near a window at Jitters, on her day off. She carded her fingers into her ponytailed hair and bent her head. “Listen to what I’m _actually_ saying.” 

She sat back up and forced a breath out of her mouth, sending a wavy tendril of hair fluttering. “I didn’t say that my manuscript wasn’t started. What I said was that it’s in progress, but that it’s not as far as you want it to be. Don’t put words in my mouth.”

While he was making another long-winded complaint-slash-response, she saw Cisco waving at her from the other side of the table, pointing at his ear. She cracked a half-smile and nodded, then pointed to the other side, indicating that he could sit down, which he did.

“No, man, just stop,” she said, looking upwards. “I’ll send you the first four chapters when we’re done with this call.” She saw Cisco raise his eyebrows at her over the rim of his coffee cup, and she shrugged her shoulders a little. “Yes, Harlan, I’ll have the next two done in a few weeks. Like I said I would, twenty-one minutes ago.” She listened to her editor calm down and then they ended the call. “Jesus fuck,” she complained under her breath, putting her AirPods away and taking a long drink of her lukewarm coffee.

“‘Manuscript’, huh?” Cisco said finally, smiling like a Cheshire cat. 

“Ahhh, it’s nothing.” She waved him away.

“Nope, now you gotta spill.” She watched him put his mug to the side and fold his arms on the table, leaning in conspiratorially. “Author? Screenwriter?”

“Author,” she said, reaching up to pull the rubber band from her hair and re-secure her ponytail.

“Anything I would have read?”

Mana leaned into her laptop to quickly send the chapters off to her editor before he started screeching at her in a text. “Maybe,” she evaded.

“What genre?”

“Sci-fi,” she nodded, then closed her laptop and shoved it into a red neoprene sleeve, then took another sip from her coffee. 

“I’ve probably read it then,” he replied, smirking. “That’s my jam.” She watched him take another drink, then lean back in the stool, folding his arms. “Gotta be a pen name, then.”

“Mhm,” she said. 

“Man,” Cisco shook his head. “You gotta tell me, I’m dying here.”

“If I tell you.” She rolled her left shoulder to pop it, then looked around, before leaning in, and he did the same. “You can’t tell anyone else. Like, at all. Ever.”

Cisco grinned. “I’m pretty good with secrets, you can trust me.”

That was likely true. Ever since she had learned that The Flash was tied to Harrison Wells, it stood to reason that both Caitlin and Cisco also knew The Flash’s identity. As much as she wanted to prod them about it, she knew what it was like to keep a mundane persona under wraps, so she never asked. Mana’s secret of being a published novelist was not as important, obviously, but it eased her mind to be able to believe that Cisco could be trusted.

Mana pulled out a napkin from the dispenser on the table and scribbled a name on it, folded it up, and shoved it over to him. Before she let go, she gave him a semi-serious look. “I mean it, man. Not a soul.”

“Of course,” he said just as seriously, then picked up the napkin and unfolded it. 

“Marina Canier? _Are you kidding me!?_ ” he whisper-shouted at her, eyes alight and sparkling; the telltale signs of a fanboy.

“SHHH!” she hissed at him, holding a finger to her lips, trying not to laugh and ultimately failing. The look on his face was far too priceless, and Mana started to crack up, which drew some curious glances as she tried to get herself under control. 

“Girl, you better not be pulling my leg,” he warned but started laughing as well. 

Mana shook her head, taking a few breaths as her giggle subsided. “Swear to God.”

“Damn, well. I’m a huge fan,” Cisco said, taking another drink from his coffee. “And you know I’m gonna bring my book in for an autograph.”

“I charge $10 for them,” she joked. “But I suppose I can give you a freebie.”

“Do you really?”

Mana shook her head, laughing a little. “Nah, man. I’m not that famous. Bring it in.” She heard Cisco’s phone chirp and watched as he checked it and sent a quick response, before getting up out of his chair. She offered him an inquisitive look.

“Sorry, gotta get back to work,” he said, then drained his mug and left it on the table, before hurrying out the door.

Mana shrugged at that and pulled her laptop back out of its case again. These chapters weren’t going to write themselves, after all. She took a look at her near-empty coffee cup and sighed, then moved over to the counter to ask for a refill. Her co-worker smiled at her and refilled the mug and handed it back to her, and Mana offered the two bucks, courtesy of an employee discount, before moving off to the side to modify it with creamer and sweetener. 

She settled back at her laptop, and nearly dropped the mug before she could sit down. On her screen was a simple notepad entry that read:

> _I know who you are now._

Mana took a deep breath and looked around in a panic, but saw no one suspicious in the cafe. She hadn’t even been away from the laptop for more than two minutes, and someone had been able to open it, leave the message, close the laptop, and leave.

“Yep, we’re done here,” she said to herself, before closing the laptop and shoving it back into her bag. She took her full mug back to the counter and asked for a to-go cup instead.

* * *

The strange did not stop after that. On the walk back to her apartment, she had felt like she was being watched. 

Normally, one wouldn’t think anything of it. People are always watching other people. And while Mana was not beauty-queen caliber in the looks department, like Iris or Caitlin, she wasn’t exactly lacking. But she purposefully hid her figure and chose rather unflashy clothes, because it wouldn’t do for an up-and-coming author to be caught dead in sweatshirts and ripped jeans, with an assortment of crazy-colored sneakers or combat-style boots. At least that’s what Harlan always harped about. Her anonymity hinged on keeping low-profile, as to not give her fanbase the notion that she was slovenly.

That had almost earned Harlan a punch in the face.

Nevertheless, someone other than Cisco had found out about her mundane persona, and now Mana’s paranoia was firing on all cylinders. Even the passing glances of wandering eyes were making her skin prickle. The walk home never seemed so agonizingly long. 

The sanctity of her apartment held no peace. She kept jumping at every little sound that the neighbors made upstairs and next door. A car alarm in the distance made her nearly fall out of her chair, and she rushed to close the window.

Wait. Why was her window open?

“NOPE,” she blurted out at the emptiness of her apartment, before grabbing her purse and beating a hasty retreat back to Jitters. At least there, if she got up onto the roof, it would take someone with keys to find her.

And that’s how Iris found her an hour later. 

Mana was laying down on the rooftop of Jitters, staring aimlessly at the stars she could see despite the still-lit cityscape. She could hear the click of boot heels on the pavement and rolled her head towards them, pulling one of her earphones from her ear, pausing Trapt’s _Headstrong_. “The prodigal daughter returns.”

She saw Iris smirk at her, coming to a stop near her shins and shoving her hands into her cropped jacket pockets. “Having a nap?”

“I found this place a couple of weeks ago.” Mana nodded, thumbing the pause on her music but remaining prone on the ground. “Great place to think about plot twists. How are you even up here, anyway?” Mana asked, turning her head back towards the brunette. “You need a key.”

“I still have one,” Iris smirked, brandishing her keyring around her finger. “They never asked for it back.”

“Nice.” Mana finally sat up and hugged one of her knees to herself. 

“What about you?” the reporter asked.

“I’m stuck on a chapter, and needed a change of pace from my boring-ass apartment views,” she lied rather convincingly. 

She watched Iris make her way to the cement perimeter of the rooftop and lean on it. Mana got up to her feet and wiped her jeans down, then settled in near her friend. Iris seemed to be watching the city without really seeing it, and then looked at her from the corner of her eyes. “This is a special place for me, you know.”

“Yeah?”

Iris nodded her head and crossed her feet at the ankles. “Sometimes I would have clandestine meetings with The Flash.”

“No shit?”

Iris shook her head, smiling. “It’s pretty amazing.”

Mana was admittedly jealous to hear that Iris seemed to have The Flash on a sort of speed dial. She had been trying for several weeks to thank him for the saves and had been thus far unsuccessful. Granted, the last week or so, she hadn’t been trying as hard as before, but she still felt some need to talk to him. Maybe to ask him if he could scare away her apparent stalker. 

Mana promptly cut off that train of thought and tossed it over the balcony.

She folded her arms on the wall and cast her eyes about the streets below, idly hoping to catch a streak of gold flying past. “Do you ask him for interviews or something?”

Mana heard Iris sigh at that. “I’ve tried more than once. He’s stingy and won’t do it,” she confessed. “Usually it’s been to ask him for assistance with something.”

Mana made a non-committal sound in the back of her throat, then looked back at her. “So, you up here for a meeting with him?”

Iris shook her head. “Nah. I just needed a minute to think, like you.”

“I can go if you want,” she offered. “I’ve been up here a while.” 

It was true. She hadn’t made any real progress with the scene for her book that had prompted her for the scenery change. But she had been able to clear her head a little. The silence of her apartment was usually a welcome respite from the hubbub of work, but there were times when it was deafening. 

Iris shook her head again and stretched her arms overhead. “I think I’m good, actually.” She put both of her hands back in her pockets and turned fully towards Mana. “Sometimes writers just need a change of pace, right?”

“Yup,” Mana agreed, offering a smile, and the two women headed back towards the stairwell to exit. Mana held open the door for Iris, who walked through it. “Next time you have a secret meeting with Him,” she started. “Tell him I said ‘Thanks’ for saving me.”

“You bet,” Iris nodded, then continued down the stairs, with Mana a few steps behind.

* * *

Mana hadn’t slept a wink that night, and it showed.

After the third wrong order was brought back to her, her manager pulled her aside to ask what was going on. She had tried as best she could to play it off as a lack of sleep, but having had a stellar record so far, her manager wasn’t buying it. He told her to take the rest of the day off and get some sleep, which annoyed her more than anything. She knew full well that sleep would not come, but who was she to pass up the offer to leave work when she was clearly not invested? 

She left Jitters behind her, already trying to psych herself into being able to sleep when she got home. She hadn’t actually had the chance to realize just how tired she actually was, and it wasn’t until the adrenaline finally wore off from the past 24 hours. There hadn’t been any other indications of her stalker’s interference since the note left on her laptop. The fear of someone invading her apartment on the third floor had been rationalized away, once she remembered that she had been cooking that morning before work and cracked open the window to air out the apartment from an over-toasted bagel.

It had rattled her enough not to notice the mortal danger she was in from a falling I-beam until she smelled the ozone and felt those now-familiar arms around her again, sweeping her for a nanosecond off of her feet, quite literally.

“We have to stop meeting like this,” his voice vibrated through his arms and into hers.

Mana coiled herself into him, holding on for dear life. 

“H-hey, it’s okay,” he said, patting her on the back. 

“It really isn’t,” she muttered into the side of his neck, before forcibly peeling herself away from him to stare directly at his face. Those eyes that had haunted her dreams for months looked down at her for a moment, and then she was left with a flare of lightning that she winced at. 

He had let go of her so suddenly, that she had fallen back onto the pavement unceremoniously, with a sudden exhale of air. She nearly bit her tongue from the impact. 

She looked over at where the beam was-- correction; had been-- and cast her wide blue eyes around for her thrice-again savior. This time, he returned to help her to her feet. And hesitated.

That moment was all she needed, before she captured him by the back of his fitted cowl, and kissed him desperately, trying to convey everything she couldn’t say into that one action. 

Some peripheral part of her noticed his arms coming around hers, gloved hands gripping her sweatshirt for a moment before he seemed to evaporate from her grasp, leaving another snapshot of electricity across her retinas.

Mana flushed the same shade as his suit and was rooted to the spot for a solid thirty-seven seconds. She pinched herself finally, trying to see if she had been having another one of her more pointed dreams, and found that she was most assuredly awake. 

“Oh God, that actually happened…” she whispered to herself, feeling the heat in her face before the total embarrassment crashed into her senses.

What started out as a terrible day now turned into the best day she’d ever had.

* * *

Barry came to a boot-scraping halt just outside of S.T.A.R. Labs and took a moment to catch his breath. 

_Did that actually just happen?_

He pulled off his gloves and cowl, feeling his lips. Yes, they did feel a little swollen, and the faint taste of peppermint still lingered on his taste buds. Barry never cared for the taste of peppermint, so it must have been Mana. 

Part of his mind tried to rationalize her actions as something that happens when a victim is saved. They reach out for their savior in a moment of crisis, and they aren’t always in control of their actions. But that wasn’t always the case. He’d heard enough stories from other cops and detectives similar in nature. Most of the time, there was a whole lot of shock or numbness. That was something he could understand. Something that he had too much experience with, and that he could rationalize.

Being kissed just for being saved? Not so much.

And it hadn’t been just a kiss of gratitude. He had literally felt a jolt at the connection. He hadn’t even realized that he had pulled her closer, wanting that connection to go on. And though it had felt like minutes to him, it had only been a few seconds. But after those few seconds, he had come back to himself, and … what? Ran away like a scared little brat? Afraid that he would be found wanting more? Feeling guilty for that stray thought, like he was cheating on the girl he had been in love with for most of his life?

_You mean, the one who doesn’t love you back?_

He ignored the devil’s advocate in his mind with a dark chuckle. Caitlin’s words at the bar came back to haunt him then, about how Mana had been trying to get The Flash’s attention. 

Well, she certainly had it now.

“Dude, Barry. You there?”

Cisco’s muffled voice from his comms snapped him out of his introspection. “Yeah, man. I’m here.” He zipped through the door and into the Cortex. 

He had three pairs of eyes on him, which put him on his guard. “What?”

“You’re blushing,” Cisco smirked widely, and Caitlin’s smile was almost as large.

“No I’m not!” He felt his face and found that his automated response was a lie.

Caitlin shook her head a little. “I warned you, Barry.”

Barry was back in his civilian garb of a pair of skinny jeans, sneakers, and a pullover sweater in two seconds. “What’re you talking about? Nothing happened.”

“Your face says otherwise,” piped in Dr. Wells. 

Barry groaned at that, hiding his face in his hands. “Et tu, Dr. Wells?”

His mentor wheeled a little closer to him, Mona Lisa smile etched into his features. It was maddening. “What happened?” he said instead.

Barry sighed, pulling his hands away from his face. “An I-beam nearly squashed Mana, and I pulled her away from it in time.” He paused, trying to decide if he wanted to divulge the rest of it.

“... And?”

“... And that was it.”

Cisco forced a laugh at him. “Nah, nah. Something else happened.” He waved his finger up and down at Barry. “The Flash doesn’t get all twitterpated from a save, even if it involves Iris. Details, yo, and don’t spare the horses.”

The mention of Iris caused a pang to zip through Barry’s whole being before he mentally stomped down on it. 

“She kissed me, alright?” he blurted out, the blush returning. “Mana kissed me.”

“Mana kissed _The Flash_ , not you,” Caitlin said pointedly, but with a knowing quirk to her lips.

“To-mae-to, to-mah-to,” Cisco added. “Barry is The Flash, therefore she kissed Barry.”

“Yes, but she doesn’t know that.”

Cisco and Caitlin devolved into an argument of semantics, while Barry escaped into the side room with the treadmill, and took a seat on the edge of it.

Dr. Wells followed after him and stopped a few feet away, folding his hands in his lap, but said nothing, which Barry was suddenly immensely grateful for.

“She probably knows now,” Barry muttered quietly, bowing his head.

“Why do you think that?”

He lifted his head and looked at his mentor. “A while back, when we brushed hands at Jitters, I felt a shock of electricity. Like what you feel for a static charge.” He reached his hands up to grip the side rail of the treadmill. “I felt it again when she kissed me, but it was … _way more_ intense,” he admitted sheepishly. He looked back over at the doctor apologetically.

Dr. Wells shook his head slightly, holding up his hand. “It’s alright,” he said. “That door was already opened by me, the minute I told you to bring her here.” He looked right at Barry and smiled a more friendly smile. “It’s true that we want to keep your identity as closely guarded as possible, but Barry,” he paused. “Mana can be trusted with this. I promise you that.”

A load of tension that Barry hadn’t realized he had been shouldering seemed to melt away at that. “So,” he said, he pulled himself up from his seated position and settled his hands on his hips. “Do we tell her, or wait to see if she’s figured it out?”

Dr. Wells canted his head to the side slightly. “Let’s wait and see what tomorrow brings.”

Barry nodded and headed out of the room. “I wonder if she likes bowling...”

* * *


	4. Deja Vu All Over Again

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A little time passes while Mana deals with her new-found knowledge but is interrupted by an encounter that leaves her reeling. Barry invites her to go bowling, and Mana has a side chat with Eddie.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you, [enchantedlightningwrites](/users/enchantedlightningwrites) for your assistance. Always appreciated.
> 
> Edited - I found a couple of typos.

There are times in life when you’re confronted with information that you’re not really sure what to do with. Maybe you found out that you were getting that promotion before you were supposed to actually know about it. Maybe you find out that your best friend’s significant other is having an affair. And then there’s the one-in-a-Googleplex chance that you find out The Flash’s identity. How are you supposed to react to that? 

You avoid his alter-ego and pretend you know nothing. Obviously.

That’s what Mana was trying to do. And it was sort of working since the subject of debate hadn’t set foot in her place of work in a couple of days. It seemed like he had realized that she might know his secret, and was blessedly avoiding her, as well. She was almost able to forget about the kiss for several minutes at a time before something would bring it back to the forefront of her mind. Like a patron talking about The Flash in passing, or a dark red jacket walking past the counter. Or, you know… that couple that was in a liplock in the corner.

Who was she kidding? She couldn’t forget.

Part of her wanted to go confront Barry over it and get a direct answer or confession. But the chicken side of her that didn’t actually care much for confrontation held her back. She rationalized not asking him by reminding herself that he was already in love with someone else, had been so appalled by the action, and was, therefore, pretending it hadn’t happened.

In fact, she had noticed that Cisco and Caitlin had also been absent from Jitters in the last couple of days. That was fine with Mana; she didn’t want the additional avenues in which to get through to Barry. Absence of all of them made it easier to move on, and slowly let go of the absurd feelings that had been budding over the last couple of months. Now, if only she could stop imagining flashes of electricity zipping by, and dreaming about sage-gold eyes and--

“Gah,” she said out loud, setting the carrying tray down on the metal countertop behind the bar more forcefully than she meant to. “Get a fucking grip, Mana, oh my God,” she grumbled at herself, reaching up to roll her shoulder and face-palming.

“Excuse me…?”

Mana turned around abruptly and plastered on a bright smile, all thoughts being shoved to the background. “Hi there, what can I get started for you?”

The customer offered a nervous smile, running his hand over the pulled-up hood of his sweatshirt. “J-just a small coffee to go, black,” he stuttered.

Mana nodded her head. “Two-twenty,” she replied, then stepped off to the side to grab a paper cup and pour him his order. She brought it back to the counter and reached for a lid, and saw him shuffle three one-dollar bills towards her across the countertop, along with a folded note.

Mana paused, then slid the cup towards him, taking the cash and note. She made his change and handed it back to him, before holding up the note between her fingers with an arched brow. “What’s this?”

“R-read it,” he said haltingly, bringing the cup to his lips.

The guy was the only one in line at the moment, so she opened the note and read it.

And nearly dropped it.

_Come_ _outside with me, or I’ll start shooting the place up,_ Marina Canier _._

She flicked her wide eyes up at him, heart rate tripling. She forced her smile back into place and nodded her head, calling over to another barista that she was taking her break. As someone else came in to replace her at the counter, Mana followed the man out the back door and kept pace with him until he was far enough away from the building. She came to a stop a handful of feet away from him. 

“Okay, I did as you asked,” she said while folding her arms over her chest, surprised at just how level her voice sounded, when she was anything but calm inside. “What’s your deal? You want an autograph?”

The man, who didn’t seem to be much older than she was - perhaps thirty - shook his head and took a sip from his coffee. Mana could see now that his left hand had never left his front pocket, and it had something more in it. _Probably the gun._ The hairs on the back of her neck stood up at that thought.

“No,” he finally said, shaking his head slightly. “You’re going to come with me, Marina.”

“That’s not my name,” she said.

The man smirked, a touch of crazy in his eyes then. “If you don’t want me to shoot everyone in there,” he pointed a single finger towards the window of the cafe, “Then you’ll come with me.”

“I’m not going anywhere with you, asshole.” Brave words for someone shaking internally like a leaf.

He dropped the coffee on the ground and took a few quick steps towards her, which had Mana backing up just as hurriedly. Her back slammed into the brick and she winced, then swallowed a scream as he gripped her wrist tightly with his now-vacant hand. “Last chance, Marina. Come with me!”

“My name isn’t Marina, fucker! That’s just a pen name.” She tried to yank her wrist from his grip, which only tightened. “Fucking _let go_!”

Someone came out of the back door of Jitters and it startled the guy, who shoved her down and ran off. Mana absently shook her wrist as she sat on the pavement for a moment. _Thank God._ She looked up then to see what had spooked her stalker, and she almost whimpered, both in relief and from anxiety. “Ah, heh. Hey Barry,” she forced out, trying to get the pounding of her blood to calm down. “H-how’s it going?”

Barry came to a stop near her and offered a hand out to help her up, and she gripped onto his covered forearm, which had him gripping hers in return. Once she got to her feet, she nearly lost her balance again but caught herself. 

“You alright? Who was that?” she heard him ask, but it sounded so far away. Those eyes that haunted her dreams were boring holes into her soul, and she was quite obviously staring. She finally blinked then, but he was starting to try to pull her closer.

“W-wait,” Mana stuttered, pushing slightly back from Barry, and looking off to the side, blushing.

“What’s wrong?” 

“I--...” her lips clamped shut, and she closed her eyes, furrowing her brows. 

The fact that she had found out that Barry was The Flash was taking its toll on her. Every time she looked at him now, she would see that cowl superimposed over his face in her mind. She would see the sparks of electricity in the sclera of his pale green eyes, and flashes of a gold-rimmed scarlet emblem with a prominent lightning bolt on his chest. And then she would blink, and he would be just Barry again. 

The sweet, charming, silly Barry, whose looks could give her pause and whose mere presence made her relax most of the tension that had settled like a brick in the pit of her stomach. The same man that she had started to feel something for on a level that made her ache in her bones. Made her want to protect him from any more heartache than she could somehow see reflected in his eyes when he didn’t think anyone was looking.

“Mana,” Barry muttered, which brought her back from the forest of thought she had wandered into. His hands came to rest on her forearms, and his head tilted to the side. “Look at me,” he said just above a whisper. “I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s wrong.”

She angled her head upwards slightly, but her eyes remained closed. “I’m fine,” she lied. 

“Then why are you shaking?” He brought his hands up to her shoulders, rubbing them slowly.

“Cause it’s fucking _cold_ out here?” she laughed sadly, taking a larger step back away from him and leaning against the wall, bringing her arms up to hug herself. 

She shook her head slightly, then finally opened her eyes. Time slowed down - literally not figuratively. ‘Live in this moment, Mana,’ her mind chided. ‘As soon as he knows that you know, he’ll be out of your reach.’ She watched Barry’s own pupils blow wide for a moment before contracting again. And time snapped back into place around them.

“Are you sure?” There was a thread of disbelief in his tone now, amidst the wonderment.

“It’s nothing, Barry,” she tried saying again.

Mana saw Barry’s shoulder droop slightly at that before he stood up a little straighter. “Okay,” he said finally. “I’m sure you have your reasons for lying,” he started and held up a hand to stop her protest. His fists clenched a little; she could practically feel the frustration emanating from his pores. “But I can’t just … _stand here_ and do nothing.” He took another step towards her, toes of his sneakers bare inches from her own. “I don’t like seeing my friends upset or scared.”

“Not in your nature to let this go, then, eh?” she blurted out, smiling crookedly up at him.

“Not even a little.” 

Mana sighed. “Suit yourself.” She reached up behind her head to tighten her ponytail and rolled her shoulder until it popped, then thumbed back towards the cafe. “I gotta get back to work,” she said, then started walking away without waiting for an answer. 

“Wait!” he called after her.

She paused at the door with her hand on it. “What?”

“Do you like bowling?”

That was probably the last thing she had ever expected to be asked by Barry. “ _Wha’?_ ”

Barry came up behind her and followed her back into Jitters. “Bowling,” he repeated. “Do you like it?”

“It’s … fine, why?”

“Come bowling with me tonight,” he blurted out, then rubbed the back of his head. “Bowling helps me work through stuff. Maybe it’ll help you, also?”

Mana slipped around behind the counter and he leaned on the other side of it. “Sure, why not?”

Barry smiled brightly and slapped his flat palm on the counter. “Eight o’clock?”

“That works,” she said, watching him back up, then gave her a double thumbs-up, before disappearing back out the door they had just come in.

_Wait… was this a date?_

* * *

No, it was not a date. 

Mana hadn’t pegged Barry for a bowler if she was being honest. Which wasn’t really fair, since she didn’t really know him all that well. But as it had turned out on occasion, she was clearly wrong in her assessment of him, as he was turning out to be a capable bowler and a lot more competitive than she gave him credit for.

It hadn’t bothered her when they had come across Iris and Detective Thawne at the alley, or the invitation that Mana and Barry should join them. She was friends with Iris, and the detective was a pretty great person too. It also didn’t bother her to see the closeness between Iris and Barry - they grew up in the same house, after all; their closeness made sense. Siblings swipe ketchup off one another’s faces all the time, right?

Maybe it was bothering her. Just a little.

She hip-checked Iris good-naturedly out of the way with a smirk as she was walking away from the lane, then plopped herself heavily in the seat next to Eddie. The whole evening, she had observed the subtle changes in his stance and attitude while watching their companions, and it was now plain on his face that he was on the cusp of a meltdown. Mana crossed her denim-clad legs and leaned on the chair back, tapping his shoulder to get his attention.

“She loves you, you know,” Mana said under her breath, loud enough for the other blonde to hear her. “Not him. You.”

“I know,” he ground out, taking a sip from his beer. 

Mana picked up her own bottle and took a sip, then nudged him against the shoulder. “Your face says otherwise.” She clinked her bottle’s neck against his then set hers on the table, before standing up again, and he followed suit. She turned to block his way a little, schooling her features into something serious, which caused him to stand up a little straighter. “Detective?”

“What is it?” he said, full attention on her, all business.

“How does your morning at work tomorrow look?”

She watched his own blue eyes narrow almost imperceptibly. “You still have my card, right?”

“Yeah.”

“My number hasn’t changed.” The detective nodded and started to walk past her to take his turn, but muttered under his breath. “Day or night, as I said back then.” And then he was back to plastering on what Mana had now dubbed as his ‘fake it til you make it’ face.

“Everything okay?” Iris said, passing by her to sit down in Eddie’s vacant seat. 

“Yup, all good,” Mana nodded, winking at Iris.

Bowling turns and good-natured ribbing continued for the rest of the game, though Eddie was losing his ability to hide his distaste with each passing turn. It was a blessing when both he and Barry both got calls and had to head out. That left Mana and Iris standing there at the shoe rental counter, making sure that everything else was turned in.

The two ladies walked out of the alley, huddled into their jackets. “That was fun,” Mana said, and actually meant it to a degree. 

She watched Iris smile a little more widely, though it didn’t reach her eyes. “It was!” As they walked down the street, Iris’ smile fell a little. “We didn’t ruin your date, did we?”

Mana shook her head, laughing. “It wasn’t a date,” she replied. “I had a rough day this morning and Barry happened to catch me without my ‘happy face’ on.” She watched Iris’ brow quirk at that. “He says that bowling helps him work through stuff, and suggested I give it a try.”

Iris nodded her head. “Did it help?”

The blonde nodded her head a little. “Yeah. Yeah, I think it did.” 

They reached an intersection and were stopped at the light, which they would part ways from, and waved to one another before veering off. 

Tonight had helped. Mana now had a plan for dealing with the morning’s little … problem.

* * *

Mana arrived at the precinct the following early afternoon to see a whirlwind of activity. She skirted around the grouping of cops, detectives, and other civil servants, who were discussing some kind of task force. She had been there to talk to Eddie about her stalker, in order to get his advice on how to handle things, as she had no idea about his identity or when he would next try to approach her again. But it would seem that a short 2 hours from her conversation with him earlier was enough for a crisis to come up. 

Her eyes caught Barry and Iris in a quiet discussion off to the left-hand side of the lobby behind the gathering of others. Iris seemed to be worried, and Barry was trying to calm her down. Mana came around the small crowd towards them, just in time to hear Barry assuring Iris that they would find Joe, which was repeated again by Eddie as he was at the forefront of the group.

The call to move out for the cops was followed up by some kind of phone call that Iris received, which sent her into a panic if the look on her face was any indication. Mana came up next to her and put her hand on Iris’ shoulder. “Iris? What’s going on?”

Iris looked over at Mana then to Barry. "He has my dad,” she breathed shakily. “He says if I tell anyone, he’ll kill him. He wants me to meet him at the waterfront.”

Barry reached behind him to grab a duffle bag. “Alright, I’m coming with you.” 

“What do you need, what can I do?” Mana followed after their quick pace towards the elevators.

Barry looked back at her, a flurry of emotions raking across his face. “Stay here,” he said. “I’ll call you later.”

Mana couldn’t help the slight tick at the corner of her eye at that but nodded her head. “Sure,” she forced out with a smile and watched the two of them disappear into the elevator, leaving Mana standing alone in the CCPD lobby.

“Yeah, no,” she said under her breath, then headed towards the opposite elevator, intent on following them to the waterfront. It was lucky for Mana that the two of them were so preoccupied with trying to get to their destination that neither of them noticed her following just out of earshot. 

And as focused as Barry and Iris were on one another, they didn’t notice her standing in plain view behind them when she came to a stop to stare at the coming storm offshore. Barry was trying to get her to leave and Iris was refusing to. Mana was close enough to hear the conversation, but not enough to interfere. The confession from Iris and the elation from Barry hurt Mana, but not as much as the following kiss that ensued.

And that’s when all three of them noticed the oncoming tsunami heading towards shore.

“What the fuck,” Mana breathed out, eyes glued to the oncoming disaster. She couldn’t hear the details of the conversation Barry was hurriedly having on the phone, but somehow she had found herself right next to Iris as he turned back to see them both. He looked at Iris first, then registered Mana, before looking back at Iris.

“I am so sorry,” she heard him apologize, likely to Iris. “I didn’t want you to find out this way.”

A tight whirlwind of blurred colors and orange-gold electricity later, and Barry was standing before them as The Flash. He glanced again at Mana, then turned his focus back to Iris.

“Go!” He insisted, then took off to start running up and down the coast.

Mana grabbed Iris’ forearm and started trying to drag her away, but was met with resistance as Iris dug her feet in. “But--”

“You heard him, let’s go!” Mana insisted, pulling a little harder. “If he fails, which he won’t, you need to be as far from here as possible.”

“You mean _we_ do,” Iris said, finally giving in, and letting Mana drag her into a dead sprint away.

“Whatever,” she said absently, finding it pretty hard to run and talk at the same time.

The moment the two women met solid ground, Mana’s world lurched, and she lost her footing, going hard onto her knees on the pavement--

No, scratch that. Her knees hit the stone steps of her apartment complex.

And it was night. Not daytime. 

Mana struggled to her feet and made it around the railing of the walk-up just in time to vomit into the trashcan next to it. She looked around her, wide-eyed and confused, vaguely aware of cars passing on the street and distant music playing from someone’s apartment. 

She shook her head, trying to pull her mind out from the jumble of images - of a tsunami about to make landfall, of Barry admitting who he was, and of the kiss between him and Iris - that were swirling within. If she went and told anyone about her visions, they’d have her committed faster than she could say “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious”. She spit a little more acid into the trash then dug around in her purse for a tissue and wiped her mouth off. By all that was smart, she should drag her ass up to her apartment, but she opted for stumbling over to the steps and plopped herself down, holding onto the ice-cold metal of the handrail. The chill was cutting into her bare hands, and helping to ground her mind to the present.

The recent events flew by her mind’s eye on repeat like a bad film reel at insane speeds, too fast for her mind to keep up with, and she could feel her insides twisting and cramping again. Mana closed her eyes to find her equilibrium again and tamp down on the sudden need to barf again. It wouldn’t have worked anyway; she was certain she had nothing left to give up. 

She fished her phone out of her back pocket and confirmed the date and time. “Fuck me.” 

Nausea aside, Mana couldn’t put off ignoring what she knew, since there was a vastly larger thing to consider. And if she were honest with herself, the notion that a time paradox was not just theoretical but an actuality, she was both supremely excited and horribly terrified about it. She only knew of one place with one group of people that would actually hear her out, God help her. 

“But first,” she said to herself. “Sleep.” 

Hopefully, Wells and Co. could shed some light on this tomorrow. On why she somehow had memories of a day that had apparently not happened yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Updates might slow down a bit while I work on a flaw I just discovered with the next chapter's plot, that affects a couple of subsequent chapter outlines.


	5. Let Sleeping Dogs Lie

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mana decides not to confront the team about her knowledge, and talks to Eddie about her little stalker problem; Barry tells Caitlin and Cisco about his suspicions concerning Dr. Wells.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to [enchantedlightningwrites](/users/enchantedlightningwrites) for the advice I needed on how to tweak this chapter. <3

Mana knew a few things about time travel.

Not strictly in the real-world, scientific application of it, of course, because the concept was still theoretical. But she had a fair amount of experience with it from a pop-culture perspective. Every work of science fiction was just that - fiction - but almost every story told out there had some small sliver of truth to it. Her own Sci-Fi novel was no exception and tended to lean towards the “Back To The Future” school of thought on the topic: _Marty had unintentionally affected the past, which resulted in a better future for himself, and thankfully didn’t result in the universe imploding._

But it could have. 

Mana opted to try to do the exact same things that day that she had done before, in order to preserve the timeline as she knew it the best she could. So her day started the same way - with a call into Detective Thawne, albeit an hour earlier. 

They had the same conversation, and he told her to stop by the precinct at the same time as the day before, three hours from then, instead of two. As she hung up the phone with him, she now had an extra hour to kill. Should she call her uncle first and take his temperature on the situation? Or should she just go to the lab and spring it on them? 

Deviating from the path of the day could either change things for the better or make them so much worse. Granted, there didn’t seem to be a lot that could be worse than a tsunami coming to wipe out half of the city. But that was one of the things she had gleaned from her research. Stepping on a butterfly had the potential to destroy the planet, after all. And if you are in a position to be able to actually affect Time itself, you really shouldn’t do anything, lest you cause a catastrophe.

What would Picard or Janeway do? 

_Stick to the Temporal Prime Directive, and don’t interfere._

Well yeah, that was easier said than done. She didn’t want a tidal wave to flatten the city any more than the next person. But messing with the events to prevent that from happening was a bad idea, too. What if it caused an earthquake instead, and Central City sunk into a pit, like half of Starling City had a while back? 

Mana sighed and rubbed her face vigorously. No, she was not going to take this unique, possibly-once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to shape things to her advantage. _I am not Biff, dammit._

Having successfully talked herself out of things, she went about her usual routine of preparing for the day. Coffee, email checks, and returning a call from Harlan which ate nineteen minutes of her time today, instead of the twenty-eight minutes it took yesterday - it was nice to know how to react to every question he asked without having to stammer out half-baked responses. That still left Mana with a solid hour and a half to shower and finish packing for her flight later that night, before she needed to meet with Detective Thawne. 

When she was finished with everything, she found that she had an extra half hour. “Awesome, I can grab some more coffee on the way to the precinct.” 

Mana wheeled her two suitcases towards her door and left them for easy grab-and-go later, and left the apartment in search of caffeine, humming to herself along the way. Deviation from her day for the sake of coffee was definitely worth the risk.

Since she hadn’t gone to Jitters last time, she didn’t think much of seeing Barry and Iris sitting at a table together. She had been about to wave to them, but they seemed to be having a somewhat tense conversation, so Mana opted to mind her own business and head to order her drink and a coffee for Eddie. She moved over to the section of the counter to wait for her order, and her eyes couldn’t help but be drawn to her two friends.

She couldn’t hear the conversation, but she could tell something had happened when Iris had stood from her seat and walked out of the cafe, leaving Barry to bow his head into his hands and card his fingers through his short crop of brunette. 

Before Mana could try to talk to Barry though, she heard her order being called, and she turned to grab the two cups from her co-worker with a smile and a nod. When she turned back, Barry was gone, and the door to Jitters was closing on its own.

Mana continued about her business towards her destination and put the little scene that had nothing to do with her out of her mind.

When she arrived at CCPD, she asked after the detective and they showed her over to his desk. Eddie looked up at her while holding the handset for a desk phone to his other ear and smiled, though it was a little strained. He held up a finger to her and Mana nodded, taking a seat. 

She pretended not to notice the tail end of the conversation or the slightly terse tone to his voice, and simply looked over at Joe, who nodded a little greeting at her before looking back at his computer screen. It seems they were both trying to mind their own business.

“Sorry about that.” Eddie hung up the phone and dug out a steno pad from his desk, grabbing a pen.

“No worries.” Mana offered him the coffee which he took with a more natural smile this time. 

He took a sip and set it down. “What can I help you with Mana?”

Mana sipped at her own hot drink while trying to collect her thoughts. “I, uh… Wanted to ask you about restraining orders?”

She could feel Eddie tense up as much as she could see his shoulders straightening. And from the corner of her eye, she saw Joe twitch as well. 

“Are you being harassed by someone?”

Mana leaned back in the uncomfortable chair next to Eddie’s desk. Part of her wanted to crack a joke, about how well-received writers have fans that weren’t always cordial, but the situation wasn’t even remotely funny. 

“I had an encounter the other day, but I never got a name.” She leaned a little closer to the detective and lowered her tone a bit. “You know that I have a pen name for my books, right?”

Eddie nodded his head, taking a few quick notes. “They’re interesting books, too.”

Mana smiled at him. “Didn’t peg you for the Sci-Fi type, no offense.”

Eddie shook his head and smiled a little in return, then went back to Business Face. 

“Tell me more about this encounter.”

The smile slipped from Mana’s face. “This guy came into Jitters and bought a coffee and passed me a note with his cash.” She dug the note out of her sweatshirt pocket and handed it to Eddie, who opened it up and read it. Mana watched his eyes sharpen a little before he pulled an evidence bag out of a lower drawer and slid the note in, sealing it.

“I did what it asked, and followed him. He got a little rough, but nothing I couldn’t handle.” Mana unconsciously rubbed her wrist at the ghost of pressure. “He was interrupted by Barry who came out the back door to find me, I guess, and ran off.”

Mana noticed Joe look over at her briefly at Barry’s name, then watched him and Eddie look at one another before Eddie looked back at her. 

“And you’re sure that you don’t know who he is? You haven’t seen him before at a book signing or some other function?”

“Other than being a psycho fan that calls me Marina, I have no clue.” 

Mana went on to start describing him while Eddie took down more notes.

“Mana,” Eddie said, closing his steno pad. “I can’t file a restraining order yet without a name for the perpetrator, but I’ll have the note sent to the lab and we’ll see if we can pull some prints.” 

Mana stood up from her seat and nodded her head, grabbing her cappuccino. “I don’t think he’ll actually do anything, but still better safe than sorry.”

Eddie nodded his head, standing up as well. “You live alone, right? Is there anywhere else you can go for a while?”

“Actually,” she said, smiling. “I’m going to be out of town for a few weeks doing signings for the new book.”

“Perfect.” Eddie indicated towards the lobby and Mana nodded her head towards Joe, before she started walking with Eddie on her right. “I’ll walk out with you.”

The two blondes ducked into the elevator and Eddie pushed the first-floor button.

“Should I get a gun?” Mana blurted out.

Eddie looked down at her and frowned. “Normally I wouldn’t suggest it, but it might not be a bad idea, living in this city.”

Mana snorted. “Who knew the shiny, happy Central City could turn out to be more dangerous than Keystone, huh?”

“Right?” Eddie agreed, and they exited the elevator. “If you want, I can teach you how to shoot on my next day off.” He held the door open for her and followed her outside of the precinct.

“Yeah, that sounds good.” She stuck her hand out to shake Eddie’s. “Thanks, Detective. For everything.”

“Call me Eddie, Mana. We’ve known each other for a few years; you’re allowed to be familiar.”

“Alrighty. Thanks.”

Mana started her way down the stairs and headed back towards her apartment, and Eddie ducked back inside.

* * *

While Mana was across the country pandering to execs and fans alike, a fair amount had happened to Barry and the team, even with him not heeding Dr. Wells’ warning against interfering with the events. His suspicions about Dr. Wells had started to grow exponentially after the kidnapping and rescue of Barry’s father, no thanks to The Tricksters. 

On the plus side, now he had a new technique to hone, despite the building trepidation. On the other hand, not only did Eddie know his identity, now Leonard Snart knew it, as well. Barry didn’t begrudge Cisco for telling the master thief, but he also wasn’t excited by the prospect. 

During the most awkward Party of Five dinners in the history of all time, Barry had found himself wishing that Mana had been there to round out things. She’d have cut through all of the tension like a whoopie cushion or might have been able to prevent it from gathering in the first place. He was pretty sure that she would have gotten along with both Felicity and with Ray. 

With the recent onslaught of Bree Larven behind them, Barry had decided that now was the best time to bring Caitlin and Cisco in on his suspicions and invited them to his CCPD lab under the false pretense of a Karaoke Night. 

Part of him had wanted to include Mana as well since she had the right to know that her uncle was not exactly who he claimed to be. But that meant having a more difficult conversation about his alter-ego first, which he wasn’t ready to have. It was bad enough that Eddie was in on it, and Barry knew that it was putting a strain on Eddie and Iris’ relationship. And while there might be merits to Iris knowing, he was marginally convinced that she was in less danger by not knowing, just as Joe had pointed out to him on more than one occasion. It stood to reason that Mana also being left in the dark was better for her in the long run. At least, that’s what he’d been telling himself for several weeks.

_Excuses, excuses._

The chattering of Caitlin and Cisco outside the door pulled him from his revelry, and he couldn’t bring himself to even smile at his friend’s good mood when asked if they were ready to go singing.

When they got close enough to see the pictures, cutouts, and red strings pinned to a giant board, Cisco’s humor evaporated, and Caitlin’s smile slipped from her lips. 

“We aren’t going to karaoke, are we?” Caitlin muttered.

“This,--” Barry replied, indicating to the board, “--Is everything we know about my mother’s murder and the Reverse Flash. I’ve been gathering information on him for a long time.”

Barry moved closer to the left-hand side of the board and reached up to the top corner. “And this is everything we know about Dr. Wells.” He pulled down another page and saw Cisco stiffen out of the corner of his eye. He allowed for several moments to let them take it all in.

“I don’t understand,” Caitlin said. “What do Dr. Wells and The Reverse Flash have to do with each other?”

Barry squared his shoulders and stood up a little straighter. “They’re the same person.” 

Barry and Caitlin had a brief back and forth about how it wasn’t possible for Dr. Wells to be a speedster until Caitlin asked Cisco to say something.

“I’ve been having these dreams,” Cisco started quietly. “Mostly at night, but sometimes during the day, but they feel real.”

Barry furrowed his brows. “What happens in the dream?”

“Dr. Wells is the Reverse Flash, and he kills me.”

The following afternoon at the West House, Joe and Barry gathered Cisco, Caitlin, and Eddie to have a discussion about what their next moves should be. Barry had just come back from Coast City with a few pizzas and the guys were all partaking, while Caitlin was seated on the stairs with a blank expression. 

They discussed how Cisco and Joe had decided to investigate the accident that had killed Tess Morgan in Starling City, while Barry, Eddie and Caitlin would remain behind, taking care of business as usual. Caitlin didn’t seem to understand why it was necessary, not feeling like it was a good idea.

As they tried to explain the logic behind their decision to Caitlin, Barry watched her start to close off, before she excused herself to go outside. It seemed like she was still convinced that they were all crazy for having the notion that Dr. Wells was the Reverse Flash. 

Barry was disappointed that Caitlin wasn’t coming to see reason, even with all of the current evidence laid out before her. He had wanted to wish Joe and Cisco luck with uncovering some irrefutable evidence, but he would be lying if he said he wasn’t scared of what they might find.

* * *

While all of this was occurring, Mana was getting back into her usual groove at Jitters. It had been fortunate that her boss had been a fan of her novels, and was allowing her to take off for unpaid leave to do tours here and there. 

The first couple of days that she had been back went as well as could be expected. It had been a fairly tiring few weeks during the tour, and she was glad to be back doing mundane things like brewing java and warming pastries. She didn’t do well with the business and schmoozing end of publishing and found it pedantic and annoying.

And as if that hadn’t been bad enough, Mana was now also dealing with hearing voices.

At first, she had thought maybe that it was the stress getting to her, concerning her stalker. But the voices hadn’t been saying anything that would indicate that. So she had sat down one evening in between functions and meetings, and tried to figure it out. A couple of hours and a raid of her hotel minibar had resulted in the notion that their appearance had to have come from the reset day, and her odd ability to have recalled it. 

Needless to say, she had spent the rest of her trip looking semi-unhinged here and there, when she was caught twice by Harlan talking to herself. At least that’s how she imagined it looked like from the outside when a person is having an internal argument out loud.

When she had finally gotten back, Mana had been disappointed to know that the crime lab - meaning Barry, most likely - had had no luck with finding a match to the fingerprints on the note she’d left with Eddie. If she was being honest, she hadn’t been too surprised at the findings, or lack thereof. Her stalker didn’t seem like the type to have done something like this before, so it wasn’t really any wonder that he wasn’t in the system. 

At the end of her shift, Mana headed home with a decaf latte, surprised to find that she was feeling more tired than she realized, with how uneventful the day had been. The closer she got to her apartment, the more she wanted to just fall into bed and pass out. Her brain reminded her incessantly that she had a little more work to do first, and she tried to justify putting it off, but the brain won out and she resigned her fate to her laptop, under the compromise that she would only work for 1 hour, and if she hadn’t finished by that point, the rest she would do in the morning.

A few emails from her editor later, and Mana could have sworn she had heard someone say something, and pulled out one of her earbuds, tapping the pause on her stereo behind her laptop screen. She listened for several seconds and, when she didn’t hear anything but the white noise of the street muffled by her closed window, she was close to convinced that it was sleep deprivation. Until she heard it again, and this time it was a clear sentence.

**Tell him that you know who he is.**

Mana sighed exasperatedly and dropped her head to her desk. _I’m not going there._ That was a conversation that she and Barry had both silently agreed not to have, judging from the way that he was still apparently going out of his way to avoid her. And she was so totally not ready to pop that bubble herself.

**He needs to know that you remember a day that no longer exists.**

Mana sat up abruptly at that. 

“Oh my God, I’m going insane,” she said to no one. She reached over and shut off her stereo with one hand, and closed the lid of her laptop with the other. “I knew it was a bad idea to stay awake longer.”

She grabbed her barely-touched latte and put it in the fridge, then shut off the lights and flopped down into her bed where sleep took her in two minutes flat. But it did not let her go peacefully into slumber. Instead, her dreams were a blur of images and conversations that made no sense, and had her tossing and turning the whole night. 

When her alarm screamed at her the following morning, she had felt like she’d barely closed her eyes. Mana slapped the off button for it and dragged herself to a sitting position, carding her fingers through her messy mane, trying to recall what the hell her dreams had been trying to tell her. All she could remember was the scent of ozone, a swirl of reds, oranges, and yellows, and the feeling of panic.

**He is coming.**

“Uhg. _Sooo_ not helpful, brain. You suck.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for the comments and kudos, everyone! They keep me going. :)


	6. Ignoring Elephants

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mana and Barry have a conversation that leaves them both with more questions than answers; They attempt to have a date, but it doesn't go as planned. Later on, Wells finds Mana at the bar, which leaves a sour taste in Mana's mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As always, I couldn't do this without [enchantedlightningwrites](/users/enchantedlightningwrites). <3

Nearly a month had gone by since Barry had reset the timeline, and Mana was still trying to ignore that it had never happened. She had seen Barry a couple of times at Jitters, but the conversations were always mundane. It seemed that he was holding steady to his assumption that she had no idea about his identity, and Mana wasn’t about to broach the subject. It would most likely mean having to admit to having knowledge that she wasn’t supposed to have as well, about a day that had been erased from everyone’s existence but hers.

Still, having knowledge about his alter-ego was beginning to eat away at her.

Mana had intended to go over to the precinct the morning after she had gotten back from her tour, to speak with Eddie about her case and to see when they might have time to go to the range, but things had been fairly busy the past week, and neither of them had had time. She was headed there now, with lunch from Big Belly Burger, after Eddie had said he would finally have an hour free that day. 

Unfortunately, when she had arrived, he and Joe had been sent out on a case unexpectedly, according to the desk sergeant. Mana sighed, staring down at the bag of lunch. _Maybe I’ll just leave it for him to have when he gets back._

“Hey Mana,” came Barry’s voice over her shoulder and she startled, turning around to face him.

“Hey,” she offered back.

Mana watched Barry hand a folder to the clerk and shove his hands into his front pockets.

They stared at one another and the pause in conversation was more than awkward.

Mana came back to herself and smiled at him, holding up the bag. “This was for Eddie, but it looks like he’s gone out, so can you give this to him?”

Barry looked at the bag then back at her, nodding slowly. “Yeah-- I mean, sure.” He reached out to take it. 

Mana heard Barry’s stomach growl.

“Unless you wanna eat it, that is?” She smirked at him.

Barry looked embarrassed, covering his traitorous abdomen. “I was just on my way out to find something, actually.” She saw something shift in his stance subtly, and it bled into his eyes. “Come with me?”

Mana regarded him carefully for a moment. She didn’t wanna jump to any conclusions about what this outing might entail, but to say she wasn’t apprehensive would be a lie. Mana nodded her head, taking the bag back and headed after Barry towards the elevators. 

The two of them sat outside in the chilly air on a park bench near the precinct. Barry had opted for a trio of hot dogs from a cart, and Mana was in the process of tucking into her lukewarm chili fries with extra cheddar. Barry was a demon with putting away his lunch, and Mana was still working on the other half of hers.

She watched him wipe his mouth with a napkin and take a long pull from his soda, before setting it down on the bench between them. “I’ve been curious about Dr. Wells’ past lately,” she heard him say.

The conversation that Barry wanted to have with her wasn’t the one she was expecting, but her worry hadn’t been quite unfounded.

**Tell him the truth.**

Mana quickly shoved another forkful of fries into her mouth to keep herself from blurting something out loud, mentally screaming at the voice to shut up. She chewed slowly to avoid answering right away. When Barry didn’t continue, she arched a brow at him. 

“So you thought you’d come to the source,” she prompted.

When he nodded his head and fixed his eyes on her; she had to keep herself from swallowing loudly. 

“What can you tell me about him?”

Mana set the rest of her now-unappetizing lunch beside her and wiped her lips on a napkin.

“Not much that’ll be useful, prolly,” she said carefully. “He’s a lot different now than when I knew him as a kid.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I was little, he and my Aunt Tess were around a lot.” She leaned back into a low slouch on the bench and crossed her legs, draping her arms across the back of the bench, her knuckles nearly touching Barry’s shoulder. She bowed her head, eyes closing to slits, and a nostalgic smile on her face. “They didn’t have any children of their own, so I guess I was the closest thing.” 

Mana tipped her head back to face the overcast skies above. “Uncle Sonny - that’s what I called him back then - was a doting guy. They both spoiled me, actually.” Mana lowered her head to regard Barry.

Barry’s entire focus was on her, though he was keeping silent, his eyes urging her to continue. 

Mana looked away from that intent gaze and out at the park before them. “My uncle was the father I never had. I had wanted to be a sci-fi writer since I saw Back To The Future, and he was always encouraging me to follow that path. The science part of it was probably his not-so-subtle influence,” she smirked, laughing quietly to herself. “He was going to send me to Space Camp when I was old enough. I was looking forward to it, actually. 

“And then the accident happened.”

“Your aunt was..--”

“Yeah,” she cut Barry off. “And everything about him changed that night.” 

She leaned her head back again and closed her eyes, rolling her left shoulder, before resting it again along the bench back. 

“I’m sorry that happened to you,” she heard Barry say, and she believed his apology. “I know a little something about that.”

“I heard,” she said absently, rolling her head over towards him and cracking her eyes open to regard his profile. She didn’t want to rehash anything that might hurt him.

Barry was now the one looking far off into the distance. “I lost my mom when I was eleven.”

“Eleven when my aunt died, and then more loss at twenty-two,” she said and saw him turn his attention back to her with slightly raised eyebrows.

“My mom was murdered a few years ago in Keystone.” Mana was surprised that she could get through that sentence without her voice cracking. “Detective Thawne was the lead on her case.” She sat up abruptly and waved off the comment that it looked like Barry was about to make. “We’re talking about my uncle though, right?”

Barry looked like he still wanted to say something else, but had the decency to let her lead them away from the still-healing wound. “Yeah.”

Mana leaned forward now and rested her elbows on her knees. “He’s a stranger to me now. After Aunt Tess’s death, he became someone else entirely. He stopped visiting, stopped calling. He may as well have died then, too.” She sat up again and pulled her hair band out of her hair to rake her fingers through the loose, wavy strands a few times, before pulling it back up into her customary ponytail. She was always fidgety when talking about something uncomfortable. “I get that grief messes with a person, and it can even break people, but fuckin’ a’--” Mana shook her head, “--he was completely absent from my life until Mom died.”

“What happened?” Barry asked gently. “If you don’t mind me asking, I mean.”

“He called to offer clipped condolences, and to say he would support me through college. Buy my loft for me,” she said evenly, trying to prevent the bitterness from poisoning her words, but failing. “And then he went into Dick Mode and made me promise not to contact him.” Her right eye twitched. “I was so angry. I tried to refuse his blood money; I didn’t need his charity after over a decade of silence. So I told him to shove his money up his ass and never call me again.” She snorted then. “The whole conversation took less than three minutes before I hung up on him. But he still managed to pay off my loft behind my back.” 

“And now he’s back in your life.” 

Despite the fact that Mana knew that Barry knew what happened next, she allowed him to play dumb. “Not by choice.” 

She uncrossed and re-crossed her legs, letting her left booted foot kick absently. She mulled over the notion of saying more, but that would encroach on His Secret, and she wasn’t ready to go there yet. 

_Gotta hand it to him though_. She watched him discreetly from the corner of her eyes. _When he actually wants to keep his secret, he’s pretty good at it._

Barry nodded his head and took a look at his watch, frowning at it and shaking his wrist a bit. He looked at her then, smiling with the left side of his lips. “I don’t suppose you--”.

“You’ve been gone for 47 minutes,” she offered immediately.

“How…?”

Mana shrugged, smiling widely enough to show her canines. “I have a knack for knowing the time.” She reached beside her to pick up her forgotten lunch and dump it into the bag, before standing up, which Barry followed suit on. 

She tossed it into the trash bin next to her and grabbed the rest of her drink, and faced him then, bringing her drink to her lips and stopping just short. “Anything else you wanna know about the bastard in an enigma’s clothing?” She took a sip.

Barry shook his head and started walking back towards the precinct, and Mana fell into step next to him easily. “It’s strange, really,” he said. “He always seems nice and open, but there is something off about him, and I can’t put my finger on it.”

“And knowing about him before the accident helped?”

“If I’m being honest,” he started, looking over at her. She saw his shoulders fall a little. “Now I just have more questions.”

Mana snorted. “You might try looking in Starling City,” she said. “That’s where they used to live before coming here.”

“Yeah?” She saw Barry arch a brow, but it seemed like a baseless motion. “I’ll check it out.”

Mana could practically feel the lie by omission ebbing from him and it annoyed her a little, almost to the point of making a comment, but she managed to stop herself. One of her talents had been being able to read people’s actions and reactions between their lines. Most of the time, it served her well with her writing, but sometimes, like now, it was irritating.

When the two of them reached the bottom of the steps outside CCPD, they stopped and stood facing one another awkwardly in silence once again.

“We should get--”

“How about coffee--”

They both fell out of their words and laughed a little at one another as the tension broke.

“Coffee or … dinner … some time?” Barry said haltingly. Nervously.

“Or both,” Mana nodded. “Dinner and then coffee?”

Something sparkled in the depths of Barry’s eyes at the suggestion, and the smile on his face turned genuine. “Sounds good,” he started, then turned to climb a few steps, before looking back at her. “I’ll call you?”

“Be quick about it,” Mana smirked, turning away from him before she lost her nerve.

She could feel eyes on the middle of her back for another half block, which made the smile widen on her face and a small blush paint her cheeks.

* * *

Barry didn’t waste time setting up the date for the following night. Despite the two enormous secrets he would have to keep buried down, he was looking forward to seeing where things went with Mana. He was somewhat out of practice when it came to dating though and was having a bit of a hard time trying to decide what to wear. At some point, Joe had threatened to shoot him if he changed his outfit one more time, so he’d stuck with an untucked off-white dress shirt, dark-washed skinny jeans cuffed at his ankles, high top sneakers, and a fitted dark red sweater, under a charcoal blazer.

 _Should I take flowers?_ He mused as he made his way through the city at breakneck speeds, but opted against it. It was the first date with someone he was acquainted with, so he took a chance to go without. 

Barry came to a stop a block away from the high rise she’d given him the address for and stared upwards once he came up to the doorway at a normal pace. He let himself marvel at the building, already understanding that it was a place he likely couldn’t afford until he’d gotten a sizable promotion or had another decade under his belt. The door opened and Mana stepped out, tucking a strand of strawberry blonde behind her ear.

The great thing about being a speedster, Barry found out rather early on, was that he could slow the world down around him in order to take in a sight at his leisure, without looking like he was staring. 

Mana was wearing a dark blue long-sleeved sweater dress that came down to her mid-thighs, over a pair of black brushed leather leggings. A wide black obi-looking belt cinched her waist, displaying the slenderness of a figure that she always seemed to hide under oversized sweatshirts or jackets. She had a pair of white mid-calf Doc Martens with black lining and laces, and a small purse slung across her body. Tonight, she had her hair in a bun, but the ever-present wisps seem to fall around to frame her face and a very slight hint of makeup at her eyes. 

_Blue is a good color for her._ He allowed himself to return to the normal flow of time.

“So,” he started a little nervously, rubbing the back of his head. “I was going to bring flowers, but that’s a little too much, right?”

Mana nodded her head, smiling. “I’m not really the flower type.”

Barry instantly regretted not bringing her flowers anyway.

“So, what’s the plan?” She asked.

As the two of them started to walk away from her apartment, he offered his arm and she took it without question, settling her hand into the crook of his elbow. He took note of the shortness of her nails, and the slightly-chipped white polish, and found that he liked the contrast against the backdrop of his jacket sleeve.

“How do you feel about Italian?”

* * *

It had really been unfortunate that the date had been cut short ‘for police business’, as Barry had put it, but Mana had a feeling it was more than that. She had sent him off with a nod and smile as he left cash on the table and ducked out without his coat. The Ziti Marinara she had ordered was delicious, so she finished hers in peace, downed the last of both their wine glasses and left the rest of the cash as a decent tip for the kind waiter, before collecting Barry’s coat and seeing herself home.

Now that she had a full belly and some free time, Mana was hopeful that she might be able to make some progress with the current chapter of her new book she’d been plugging away at this week. Unfortunately, Mana was having a helluva time concentrating and kept thinking about the jacket that was hung up on her coat rack by the door and pretending not to smell the ozone underneath the faint scent of aftershave or cologne.

As she wrote, the current main character in the book was starting to take on characteristics that weren’t common to him. He was supposed to have long black hair and brown eyes, but Mana was catching herself writing him with green eyes here and there. He was also not supposed to have quick reflexes, either. At some point, she had made him an agile thing, and it was driving her mad.

Another hour and a particularly large fit of annoyance at having to trash twelve pages of work, Mana had given up on it for the night and headed out to the bar to try to reset her mind. She settled down at a low table in the corner with a particularly potent blue concoction on the rocks in a highball glass, half of it destroyed, with an order for another to come her way shortly.

That was where Wells found her, much to her chagrin.

She hadn’t even heard the hum of the power chair coming up over the din of chatter in the bar until he cleared his throat next to her. She startled out of her staring match with the far wall and immediately soured her look.

“God, what do _you_ want?” she greeted him snidely and took a long pull from her drink to polish it off.

“Company,” Wells said vaguely, ordering a scotch on the rocks when her second Adios Motherfucker arrived.

“Find someone else,” she spat, plucking the toothpick out of her drink and dropping the Maraschino cherry into her mouth. “You’re not invited to my Party of One.”

“Come, now, Mana,” Wells said through his annoying smile. “Let’s bury the hatchet.”

Mana snorted in derision and pointed over her shoulder. “It’s still here in my back where you left it.”

“I apologize for that,” he paused to nod his thanks to the waiter who brought his drink. “I was in a bad place after … all of that.” She watched him take a drink, then settle the glass on the table, eying her from the corner, his vision sliced in half by the cut of his glasses.

She stalled on responding by taking a drink of her own. “So, you came here to apologize?” She saw him nod once. “And then what, hm? You figured everything would be fine? That I would forgive you like the last _fourteen years_ could be washed away with the waning tides?” Mana laughed in spite of herself. “That’s fucking rich.”

“No, I’m not naive to think all would be righted.” He shook his head, taking another swallow of scotch. “But, one has to start somewhere,” he said absently.

“Well, you’ve made your start. Now you can go away again.” She waved him off. “Go back to the prodigal son.”

She saw him still at that and it made her smile smugly when he looked at her with a guarded glance, before taking another sip of his drink. 

“Who might that be?”

Mana polished off the rest of her second drink, feeling the effects of the drink start to really take hold, which was going to loosen her usually tight tongue, but she had stopped caring much. She slammed the glass of ice down on the table and leaned close enough to poke him soundly in the chest. “Don’t play dumb with me, Uncle. You know who I mean.”

“Tell me anyway.”

**Don’t tell him.**

Mana sat up straight in surprise, then rolled her eyes to recover, both from the sudden line in her head and from Wells’ request. For once, she heeded the advice given to a degree. “Barry, obviously.”

They were both saved from Wells having to make any kind of retort when the phone near Mana’s elbow started to vibrate on the table. She picked up the device and looked at it, both happy and sad that it wasn’t Barry, before answering it. “It’s late, Harlan, and I’m drinking. Hold on.” She nestled the phone against her shoulder and looked at her unwanted companion. “Go. Now. This is business.”

Wells left his half-empty glass and dropped a twenty on the table, backing off from it a few inches. “We’ll talk again,” he said, before rotating his chair and wheeling it away.

“Not if I can help it, asshole,” she muttered.

Mana watched Wells go for a few more moments, then put the phone back to her ear, allowing her editor to chew her out for her lacking progress lately. “Yes, yes,” she sighed. “I know I’m lagging. Shit has been nuts in my head, man. I’m always early with submissions, but even I’m not fucking perfect all the damn time,” she snapped at him. 

Harlan made a few stab-worthy comments at her, and it killed a touch of the anger in her. She deserved it, but in her inebriation, most of it would likely go unremembered in the morning. 

Mana ended the call and slapped the phone back down on her table. She reached over and grabbed the scotch, downing it in a single swallow, winced, and set the glass down, licking her lips. She signaled the waitress to bring the check, and moved to pull another twenty from her purse, then handed both to the waitress and made her way out of the bar.

“I hate scotch,” she said to herself, but Mana wasn’t one to let free alcohol go to waste this evening. Or any evening, for that matter.

* * *


	7. Murphy's Law

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mana and Iris catch up over drinks and dancing, but are rudely interrupted by Mana's stalker. The Reverse Flash finally makes his appearance after months of silence, leaving Barry in the dust and down a detective. Iris finds out the truth about who The Flash is.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the kudos comments, everyone! I always appreciate them so much! <3
> 
> As always, [enchantedlightningwrites](/users/enchantedlightningwrites) is my hero. :D

* * *

Mana nodded her head to the bartender, who set down a pair of martini glasses in front of her, leaving a $10 tip for him. She picked up the green and the pink drink and swerved around snugly-packed bodies moving to the music in the club until she found a small table to claim for herself and her companion that was running late.

“Oh my God, I’m so sorry!” Iris breezed her way over to the small standing table and settled her arms across its top, smiling at the blonde. She took a look between the two drinks and arched a brow, raising her voice high enough to be heard. “Which one of these is for me?”

“Pick your poison!” Mana responded with a slight chin jut at either drink. She watched Iris pull the Cosmopolitan towards her and drain half of it in one go, to which Mana whistled appreciatively and laughed. She dragged the Scooby Snack towards herself and downed the whole thing in three swallows, before catching the bartender’s eye and signaling for a second round.

“Rough day for us both, then.” Iris’ dark eyes twinkled before she put away the rest of her own drink.

The two women talked and laughed over their next rounds, sipping them this time, and caught up. It had seemed like _years_ since they’d had that chat on the rooftop, and they’d just never seemed to be time to settle in for more than texting until now. Mana was happy that they had found time tonight, and it seemed like Iris was, as well.

“So, I heard you had a date with Barry!”

Mana choked on her drink. “Wh-- oh, nevermind. _Of course_ you heard about that.” She sighed and tried sipping her drink again. “Did he tell you he had to run out in the middle of it too?”

Iris put her glass down and ran her fingers through her thick, slightly highlighted locks. “He did, and he seemed pretty bummed about it. I gave him crap for it, too.”

“Good.” Mana snorted. “He _should_ feel bad.” She offered Iris a cheeky grin. “I’m fucking awesome, after all.” 

She raised her glass to Iris.

“Absolutely.” Iris raised hers and clinked them together, laughing. “I’d date you if I was into girls.”

“Damn right, you would,” Mana cackled and polished off the rest of her drink. She waved Iris out towards the dancefloor and they both headed out to get their groove on to Usher. Iris was a dynamo when it came to dancing, while Mana was … well, more confident in her ability to sing than to dance. But at least she wasn’t making an utter fool out of herself. 

A few songs later, and the two of them were shuffling their way back to the bar. Mana let out an attention-grabbing whistle that had a few heads, as well as the bartender’s turning, and she held up a couple of fingers.

She turned towards the laughing at her side and smirked. “Still got it,” she snarked and winked at Iris.

Iris stilled for a moment and reached into her back pocket to pull out her phone, looking at it, and back at Mana. “It’s Eddie, I’m gonna duck outside.”

Mana waved her away and nodded, setting half a buttcheek on a barstool to wait for their drinks. 

“She’s so whipped,” she said to herself, smiling.

When the bartender came over to her with another pair of drinks, she held out her card between her fingers, but the bartender made a cutting motion across his neck. Mana arched a brow and waved him closer, leaning across the bar so he could hear her. “On the house?”

The bartender shook his head and indicated down the bar on the other side. “Paid for by that guy.”

Mana glanced in the indicated direction, and all of the sounds faded to the background.

Her stalker was waving faintly at her from under his hood.

Mana leaned back abruptly and started with a critical eye down at the drinks, then back at the other end of the bar, but the guy was absent.

“Hi Marina,” she heard in her ear, and she nearly fell off of the stool trying to back away. 

The man reached out too quickly though and caught her by her forearm, pulling her back towards him. “Careful,” he said, too close for comfort. “Can’t have you getting hurt.”

“Then leggo of my arm, jackhole.” She yanked her arm free and bolted out the back door of the club. A moment later, she heard the hinges creak again and she tried to run, but he was apparently a fair bit soberer than she was. That was unfortunate to realize, and not in time to keep him from grabbing her arm again. 

Mana was shoved against the brick wall of the building forcibly and she blew out a breath, wincing at a broken brick digging into her back through her cropped jacket.

“Finally alone again, Marina,” he purred, a dark smirk on his lips. Mana felt her stomach roil in protest. 

“Stalker much?” Mana couldn’t keep from saying through her discomfort, but it only seemed to egg the guy on.

She saw Iris from the corner of her eye, half in shadows, and shook her head as subtly as she could. The last thing she wanted to do was get her friend involved with a crazy person that was probably packing a gun. 

‘Should I tell Eddie?’ Iris’ glossy lips mouthed. Mana motioned an ‘ok’ sign with her free hand at her thigh and she saw Iris nod her head, backing up slowly.

“I would have come to your place, you know,” her crazy fan confessed. “But it’s like Fort Knox. I checked.” 

Mana had to swallow down her bile at the comment. He knew where she lived now? “That’s on purpose,” she said evenly, sounding braver than she felt.

She saw Iris signal a ‘six’ with her fingers over the creeper’s shoulder, and Mana had to admit that she wasn’t pleased that she would have to stall for that long. 

**Run.**

_No shit, tell me something useful for once, you stupid voice!_

She felt the grip on her wrist tighten and she focused back on the task before her. 

“You could make me a key, you know,” he said, and she had to keep herself from spitting in his face.

“I have a boyfriend,” she lied. “He wouldn’t like that.”

It seems that had been the absolute worst thing to have said.

Mana was shoved even further into the wall, and she couldn’t keep the wince from showing on her face this time as the brick dug further into her shoulder-blade.

“He doesn’t love you like I do!”

“You don’t love me, you douche canoe!” she fired back automatically, yanking her arm to get away, but it was in vain. The grip was now tight enough that she was starting to feel the telltale signs of numbness in her fingertips. 

“Let go, or you’re going to ruin my hand and I’ll never write again!”

Her words seemed to have a bit of an effect as his grip loosened by a fraction, and Mana could feel the blood rush into her hand. 

It was an opening, and she took it by ramming her knee into his groin. That was enough to make him drop her arm altogether, and Mana shot away from him like a bat out of Hell.

She managed to dart out of the alley, just in time to see Eddie’s sedan screech to a stop on the street. She hiked up her knee to slide across the hood, coming to a halt on the other side just as the detective got out. Mana pointed back towards the alley.

“In there!”

Eddie wasted no time and took off at a dead sprint into the partially-lit alley.

Iris came running out around the car and caught Mana just in time for her legs to give out under her. “Whoa, I gotcha, girl.”

Mana let herself lean into her friend, not hearing much over the pounding of blood in her ears, absently shaking out her hand to get the blood flowing more freely in that direction. No doubt she’d have the bruise in bright shades of purple and blue in the morning.

Once she caught her breath, she leaned away from Iris slightly, arm still slung over her friend’s shoulder and leaned against the car hood with her other hand. 

“I might barf,” she blurted out.

Eddie came out with the man in cuffs in front of him, reading him his Miranda Rights as they walked to the back passenger side of the car. Eddie opened the door and shoved the guy in, slamming the door closed. He came around the other side of the car and hugged both of them quickly, then looked down at Mana.

“We won’t need that restraining order now.” He glanced at her. “I need your statement, but it’s against protocol to give you a ride with your assailant in the same car.” He looked over at Iris. “Can you guys grab an Uber and meet me at the precinct?”

“It can’t wait until tomorrow?” Iris questioned, and Mana saw Eddie shaking his head. 

“Best to get a statement while things are fresh.”

Mana nodded and dug in her back pocket for her phone, but her hands were shaking too hard from the adrenaline overload, that she couldn’t key the right code to her phone.

“I got it,” Iris said, before turning to Eddie. “Be there in a few.”

Eddie nodded his head and got into his car, ignited the engine and backed out, pulling into traffic.

Mana seemed to have zoned out for a few minutes, because she suddenly felt Iris’ gentle hands on her back and shoulder, settling her into the back of a Prius, and heading off to CCPD.

“So,” Iris said after a few minutes. “Boyfriend, huh?”

Mana snorted in spite of the mush her mind was. “Not my finest quip.”

“You know I’m gonna tell Barry that, right?”

“... I want a divorce from this friendship.”

“You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried to.” Iris laughed brightly, patting her on the knee. “Not in a million years.”

“Bitch,” Mana muttered, smiling a little.

Iris leaned into her. “You love it.”

* * *

The following night, it was Barry’s turn to have a shitty time. And if there had been a contest between him and Mana, Barry would win by a landslide.

The trap they had set for Dr. Wells had failed, and they’d wound up killing Hannibal Bates, followed by a smug call from Wells, citing that he was still one step ahead of them, and always would be.

Cisco alerted Barry that Wells was in the Time Vault, and Barry sped himself there.

“Oh, God…”

Barry stared at the holographic screens displaying before him in slowly growing horror.

“It was all a set-up.” He muttered to himself aloud. _We thought we set a trap for him, but he set a trap for us._

His wide hazel eyes raked across the scenes, before zeroing in on the frames of his lab, of Iris at her desk at CCPN, and of what appeared to be the inside of Mana’s apartment with her typing away at her laptop. Barry’s blood turned to ice in his veins.

He blew into the cortex and started walking at a clipped pace towards his suit. “We have to find Iris and Mana.”

“Why?” Joe asked.

“Wells,” Barry said simply. “He’s been watching all of us. He has surveillance footage set up everywhere. Our homes, my lab, even CCPN, and Mana’s place.” He turned back to the work station. “Cisco, call me when you get their locations.” In a flicker of lightning and a gust of air, Barry was in his suit and out the door.

* * *

Nearby, Eddie was preparing to propose to Iris, but the box had been snatched away from behind his back. Eddie looked behind Iris, then felt himself being lifted off his feet into the air and dropped to the ground.

At the other end of the bridge, the blurry form of the Man in Yellow stood stationary.

“Bad timing, Detective.”

Eddie brought his gun level from his crouch but didn’t have time to pull the trigger before Reverse Flash had him by his jacket lapels.

“Stop, leave him alone!” Iris shouted in panic.

The Reverse Flash shoved Eddie into the bridge railing and came to a stop in front of Iris. 

“I know who you are,” she breathed out nervously. “You killed Barry’s mom. But you don’t have to hurt anyone else.”

Reverse Flash paused in his action of putting his hand through Iris’ chest when he saw The Flash barreling towards the bridge. Instead, he turned and grabbed Eddie, and took off.

Barry made a split-second decision to not pursue his foe. He blurred his face, putting his hands on Iris’ arms and making his vocal cords vibrate. “Hey, Iris. It’s okay, it’s me.”

It was breaking his heart to see her on the verge of a breakdown.

“He-- he took him,” she gasped out. “The Man in Yellow, he took Eddie.”

“I promise I will find him, okay?” Barry pulled Iris to her feet and told her to go home, telling her not to say anything to anyone, and swearing to her again that he would find Eddie for her.

When he turned to run, his fingers pulled away from her, but not before they emitted a static shock.

As Barry ran after Wells, he called out to Cisco. “Found Iris, and he took Eddie before I could stop him. Did you find Mana?”

“Not yet, but I found something else about Mana,” Cisco said with strain and concern in his voice, which ratcheted up Barry’s hackles.

“What is it?”

Cisco seemed to hesitate, before blowing out a long breath. “Looks like Mana had a stalker. Eddie arrested someone last night, and they made bail this morning.”

Barry almost stumbled but kept running. “She _what_?” And then a few random thoughts clicked into place...

_That day Mana was sitting outside Jitters, and a guy was jogging away._

_A fingerprint analysis from a creepy note for a Jane Doe case._

“Ex-boyfriend?”

Barry hadn’t realized he’d said it out loud until Cisco replied. “Doubt it. But Mana is … somewhat famous, though.”

“What do you mean, famous?”

“We can talk about it later, man,” From his tone now, Cisco seemed to be backpedaling.

“Spit it out, Cisco.”

“Well, have you heard of Marina Canier?”

Barry was a bit confused. “Sure, she writes those awesome Sci-Fi novels, but what has that got to do with Mana?” 

“The pen name is an anagram. Mana’s full name is Marianna Rice.” Barry registered another sigh through the comms. “She’s gonna kill me. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone who she was.”

“We’ll talk about it later,” Barry assured him. “Just try to find her while I look for Eddie.”

“You got it.”

* * *

Cisco had found Mana at Jitters, where she’d been since she’d started her shift at three the previous afternoon, safe, sound, and oblivious to what had been happening. That had lifted a smidge of the metaphorical weight from Barry’s shoulders and allowed him to sleep a little easier that night.

But the following day, everything had gone down with Eiling, and Barry was trying to shake the last vestiges of his mind being scrambled when a pair of heels clicked across the tiled floor in the cortex. He looked over, still dressed in his suit with his cowl off, and felt all of the blood drain from his face.

Iris was there. And she _knew_.

After the initial confrontation at S.T.A.R. Labs about her revelation, and the pointed discussion they had had, Barry had been surprised that she hadn’t gone completely nuts on him for having kept her in the dark for months. With Eddie still missing though, it seemed that she was trying her best to compartmentalize and come to terms with the knowledge. Barry always knew that she was made of iron or steel

As soon as Grodd had come into the picture and kidnapped Joe right out from under them, it wasn’t really any wonder that Iris had hit her limit to how much she could hold in.

“First Eddie, and now my dad... “ she said, her voice breaking slightly.

“We’re gonna save both of them, Iris, I promise,” Barry said, going into Flash Mode.

“Hold up,” Cisco piped up. “I put a tracker in the tranq dart you shot him with. Once it lights up…”

“Nah,” Barry cut him off. “We don’t have that kinda time. I’ll scour every inch of the sewers if I have to, but I’m gonna find him.”

He saw Caitlin offer a frown. “And while you’re doing that, suppose he gets into your mind again?”

She had a good point. Barry looked between his friends hopefully. “Can you guys build me some kinda tech that’ll keep him out of my mind?”

Cisco sighed. “Maybe if Dr. Wells were here…”

“I don’t get it,” Iris spoke up again. “You guys are out there helping people every day. All of The Flash’s powers, and all this tech, and you can’t save Eddie and my dad?”

Barry had already been kicking himself mentally since Eddie and Joe had been taken. And the verbal assault from the girl he’d grown up with had been a gut punch. 

His instincts screamed at him to follow after her, but Caitlin put a gentle hand on his arm and shook her head at him.

“Give her some time, she’s had a lot thrown at her in the last two days and not enough time to process all of it.”

Barry was about to argue, but he stopped himself. He knew Caitlin was right. Iris did need some time to herself, and it wouldn’t do her any good if he kept trying to push his justification for not sharing his secret with her. Barry had wanted to tell her at the beginning; he still felt like Joe had been wrong to persuade him against telling Iris. Joe was rarely wrong with his advice, so Barry had gone along with it. He should have listened to his gut after all.

This situation, though, brought about another large question: Was Mana also better off not knowing?

If anything, she deserved to know the truth, at least about Wells. About how he wasn’t who he had pretended to be for the last fifteen years. This imposter, whoever he actually was, had killed her aunt and uncle, in order to presume Harrison Wells’ identity. 

_Great, another thing to add to the growing pool of acid in my stomach. Peachy._ Barry took a moment to thump his head on a wall nearby. This was turning out to be a red-letter week, built on lies, mistruths, and deceptions.

He felt his phone buzz in his pocket and reached for it, looking at the display as it lit up, both happy and apprehensive to see “MANA” as the sender.

>> Hey.

<< Hey there.

>> About dinner the other night.

Barry slapped his forehead. He just realized that they hadn’t had a conversation since he’d had to run out in the middle of dinner, and now he felt like a tool for not contacting her afterward. He’d had some other things on his mind, of course, but he could have found a couple of minutes to call her or at least send her a few texts to apologize.

<< I’m so sorry about that. I meant to call you.

>> Relax, it’s fine. Lol

Barry winced at that. It wasn’t fine and he knew it. Mana was just being nice, and that was making it worse.

>> You seen Det. Thawne?

Barry’s stomach dropped like a stone.

>> We had a date with the gun range and he never showed. :\

 _Gun range? Really?_ He fired off a quick response.

<< Haven’t seen him, sorry.

It wasn’t a lie, per se. He hadn’t actually seen Eddie, but he still felt a new wave of guilt. A lie by omission was still a lie, after all. Hadn’t he just had this argument with himself?

>> Npnp. If you do, pinch him for me plz.

<< Yes ma’am.

Could The Flash call in sick? That could be a thing, right?

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the delay on this one, folks. But we're gonna start getting to the good stuff now, so it's taking a little more time to weave changes in. Hehe.


	8. One Step Behind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Joe is safely returned and Grodd is dealt with. Barry makes the decision to finally bring Mana into the team, after blessings from everyone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A/N: At the beginning of this story, I said I wasn't going to re-write every little thing from the TV show, and that I'd try to keep it to a minimum whenever possible. I still intend to do that.
> 
> But. 
> 
> The next few chapters are going to require keeping a little more closer to the show. Certain things will still need to happen, in order for other changes to take place down the road. 
> 
> As always, thanks go to my Beta, [enchantedlightningwrites](/users/enchantedlightningwrites), as well as to you, the readers. <3

* * *

Joe was safely back above ground, Iris was having a heart to heart with him, and Barry couldn’t be more relieved that his adoptive family was making amends after all the months of secret-keeping. And though some of the weight that had been making things hard to breathe lately had been lifted off of his chest, Barry couldn’t help but continue to berate himself over things left unfinished.

He was back in the room with the super treadmill, sitting on the edge of it, elbows resting on his knees and chin on his curled fist when Caitlin and Cisco wandered into the room.

“Maybe it’s a good thing we didn’t catch Grodd,” Caitlin said, coming around the side of the treadmill to sit down next to Barry. “Where would we even put him?”

Cisco and Barry both nodded their heads at her slightly jovial tone. 

The three of them discussed the aftermath of what had happened, all coming to the conclusion that Joe had been right from the beginning: Grodd had been sicced on them as a distraction. Cisco provided his concerns about the headset, lamenting that it hadn’t been strong enough, and his guilt over the realization that Barry could have died because of it.

Barry shook his head at his friend. “No, dude. Your tech worked, and it proved that we don’t need Wells. The three of us took on Grodd, and we rescued Joe.” He allowed himself a bit of a smile at that. “We can do anything.”

“Actually,” Caitlin said with a wry smile. “It was the four of us.”

That was true. Iris’ voice had grounded Barry when he was feeling overwhelmed by Grodd in that subway. She had truly brought him back to himself when he had been slipping away, and he was thankful for that fact. 

But somewhere over the last couple of months, there had been a shift in his feelings for Iris. He would always love her in his bones -- that much he knew. You don’t ever really get over your first love, and he would be a fool to deny that. But that love had morphed into something akin to family rather than romantic. 

As he considered the situation in hindsight more closely, some small part of him thought that if Mana had been there quarterbacking, that she might have been just as helpful, if not more so.

“Barry, what is it?” 

Cisco’s question brought him back to the moment, and Barry looked over at him, then at Caitlin.

“Huh?”

“You’ve got that look on your face that screams regret,” Cisco said.

Barry stood up from the treadmill and took a few steps away from it, squaring his shoulders. This was going to be a difficult admission. He turned back around to face them.

“I was just thinking … Now that Iris knows my secret,” he paused, swallowing. “Would it be, I dunno… bad… if Mana knew it, too?”

He saw Caitlin’s eyes widen a little, and Cisco smirk slightly.

When they didn’t respond, he prompted them. “For it? Against it? We all gotta be on the same page here.”

“Why now?” Caitlin finally replied.

Barry brought a hand up to run through his hair. “I, uh… think that she … might … already suspect …” he tapered off, looking away from both of them, embarrassed.

Cisco snorted, and Barry looked over at him.

“That wouldn’t surprise me, actually. She’s got this strange knack for noticing things.” Cisco stood up then, and stuffed his hands into his pockets, shrugging nonchalantly. “The way she writes makes me wanna pick her creative brain about tech, too. I’m cool with it if you are.”

Barry looked over at Caitlin to gage her opinion.

She nodded her head. “She should know everything. Especially that Dr. Wells isn’t actually who he claims to be.”

Barry let a sigh escape his lips. He hadn’t realized just how important it was that his friends were in agreement until that moment. Now he just needed to get Iris and Joe’s opinions on the matter.

Barry’s thoughts were interrupted by a ringtone with an upbeat tempo.

_“_ _You, make, me, feel like I'm living a, teenage, dream / The way you turn me on /  
I, can't, sleep; Let's runaway / And don't ever look back, don't ever look back ...~” _

“Ohoho, man…” Cisco started, sounding for all the world like he was holding back laughter. “ _Please_ tell me that’s Mana’s ringtone…”

“Shut up,” Barry said, walking away from them and out of the cortex as he was answering the phone. 

“Hey, Mana.”

“ _Hey yourself,_ ” her voice came over the line, and something in him warmed a little bit.

“YOUR TEENAGE DREAM, EH, BARRY?” came Cisco’s absurdly loud voice.

Barry cringed when Mana started cracking up on the other end of the line.

“ _Subtle,_ ” Mana snickered. “ _Is that song my ringtone?_ ” 

“Do I have to answer that?” Barry managed to get out through his embarrassment, only slightly sounding like he was whining.

_“Would it help if I told you that I set songs for my contacts, too?”_

“Only if the one you set for me is embarrassing, but you still told me what it was anyway so that we’d be even.”

Barry heard Mana laughing a little breathlessly away from the phone, and a few muted taps before a song played over the speaker.

… Which was the _Benny Hill Show_ theme.

“For real?” Barry started to laugh, which made Mana laugh even harder.

_“Nah,”_ Mana finally admitted and Barry could hear her making a few more taps as she swiped through some of her phone menus. A new song began playing over the call.

_“I know your insides are feeling so hollow / And it’s a hard pill for you to swallow /  
_ _But if I … fall ... for you ... I’ll never recover / If I … fall … for you ... I’ll never be the same…~_ _”_

While the song was playing, the smile on Barry’s face was widening little by little. “That’s, uh…” he stopped, clearing his throat a little. “That’s a good one.”

“GET A ROOM!” came Cisco’s voice.

“Oh, my God,” Barry muttered, walking further away from the cortex doorway, blushing from a different kind of embarrassment now.

Mana’s laughter on the other end of the line wasn’t helping.

Barry came to a stop several yards away and leaned against the concrete wall. “I’m sorry, you probably called for something, right?”

_“Oh,”_ he heard her reply with a bit of surprise. _“I did, actually. Did Eddie go undercover or something?”_

Barry’s joviality evaporated. “Uh, yeah. I mean-- I don’t actually know. He might be undercover?” He took a moment to massage the base of his skull and looked up at the ceiling. 

_“Hmm… I suppose they wouldn’t advertise that to everyone, either,”_ she replied rhetorically, but Barry was nodding his head anyway.

“Need to know, yeah.”

Barry listened to Mana sigh. _“Sorry, I’m getting another call. I’ll call you back in a bit?”_

“Sure, sounds good,” Barry said. “Take it easy, Mana.”

_“Thanks, bye!”_

Barry locked his phone and deposited it into his back pocket. He brought both of his hands up to his face to rub it several times. He was going to have to stop lying to her, especially if things with her were ever going to go anywhere.

Before he could do that, he needed to talk to Iris and Joe.

* * *

The conversation with Joe went a lot smoother than Barry thought it would. He had asked his adoptive father if he was for or against bringing Mana into the fold and thought he might meet resistance. But it turned out that Joe thought it would actually be more dangerous for her to be blindsided. He pointed out that Wells had already taken one hostage, and when a perp was fearless, it was likely to escalate. 

“I gave you bad advice about Iris, because of my own fear and being her father,” Joe had lamented. “If you like this girl, tell her the truth, and then bring her here, so that we can all keep an eye on her, yeah?”

Barry had nodded at that and smiled a little at Joe. “She can shoot, too.”

“Oh?” Joe raised an eyebrow. “She any good?”

Barry shrugged. “Eddie had taken her once to the gun range apparently, but I dunno.”

Joe settled back into the pillows of his exam bed. “Bet she’s good at it, even after one session. Eddie’s a good teacher.” He yawned a little and offered an apologetic smile to Barry. “Sorry.”

Barry shook his head and stood up. “Nah, no worries. You need some sleep. I’m gonna go talk with Iris and get her take on this. We all gotta be on board, and she’s the last.”

“Bet she’ll be fine with it,” Joe said around another yawn. 

“I hope so.” Barry patted Joe’s shoulder gently and left him to his rest, feeling better about his decision with each person he talked to. 

Barry arrived at Jitters to see Iris sitting at a table with a cup of coffee and a number of reels of what looked to be self-stick labels. He settled into the seat across from her and she looked up at him with a slightly forced smile.

“Return labels for me and Eddie,” she answered his unasked question. “I ordered two hundred to start, but they messed up the order and sent two thousand.” 

Barry watched the smile slip from her face like raindrops on a windshield.

“We’ll find Eddie,” he promised, reaching out and grasping her hands in his own. “And then you’ll be glad that you have enough labels to last you for a long time.”

“I know,” Iris nodded, squeezing his hands, then pulling away from them. “It’s just hard, because I miss him so much.”

Barry nodded his head and folded his hands in front of himself, leaning on the table. 

Iris shook her head and squared her shoulders, before starting to stuff the reels back into their box. “Distract me with something good.” Her smile turned a little devious. “When are you gonna tell Mana?”

“How did you know--” he started.

Iris laughed at him and patted his arm. “Please, I’ve met you, Barry, remember?” 

Barry smiled at her. “Yes, we’ve met.” He leaned back in the chair, folding his arms over his chest. “So, you’re okay with it then? Really?” 

Their conversation was paused by the bringing of a coffee mug that was placed in front of Barry by a barista, who then topped off Iris’ mug. Barry nodded his thangs and pulled his mug towards him, taking a few ginger sips at the hot beverage.

“Yes,” Iris finally answered, wrapping her fingers around her own mug. “You like Mana, right?”

Barry nodded his head. “Yeah, I think I do.”

“Then tell her.” 

Barry sighed heavily. “It’s not just my secret, you know? I also need to tell her about Wells, too.”

He watched Iris nod her head. “Yeah, it’s a lot to take in, not gonna lie.” She sipped her coffee. “But trust me, it’s better to hear it intentionally from the source, than it is to find out on your own.”

Barry winced at her words. “I’m so sorry, Iris.”

Iris waved him off. “It’s fine, now. I wish you’d been honest with me, and that Dad hadn’t made you keep it from me, but I do understand why. I do.”

Barry didn’t realize that he’d been holding his breath and let it escape in a rush.

“So?” Iris questioned. “You’re going to tell her, right? About you, about Wells, everything?”

He nodded his head. “I needed to make sure that everyone was okay with her knowing, and you were the last one.”

Before Iris could respond, Barry felt his phone buzz in his pocket, so he reached in to pull it out and look at this display, smiling when he saw who it was.

“Mana?” Iris asked knowingly.

Barry nodded and answered the call. “Hey, Mana.”

“ _Hey, sorry about earlier._ ”

“No worries,” he said. “Everything good?”

“ _Yeah yeah,_ ” she said, but there was some strain in her voice that made him think otherwise.

Barry looked over at Iris and swallowed, and he saw her give him an encouraging smile and nod. He looked away from her and aimlessly out the window next to him. “Are … are you free right now?”

There was a pause on the line before Mana replied to him. “ _... Yeah, I’m free._ ”

“I, uh,” he stuttered. The words were suddenly a lot harder to get out than he had anticipated. “I think we should have a conversation about a few things.”

“ _We prolly should,_ ” she replied just as cryptically. “ _Where should I meet you?_ ”

Barry looked over at Iris, and read the note she’d typed out on her phone, that she was holding up to him. 

_Have your chat, we’ll meet you guys at S.T.A.R. Labs afterward._

“The roof of Jitters?” He said into his phone while nodding his head to Iris and watched her grab her things to head out.

“ _Sounds good. Twenty minutes?_ ”

“Perfect.”

* * *

Twenty minutes later, on the dot, Barry heard the door to the roof open and shut, and the quiet shuffling of sneakers on the concrete behind him. He had been up there, collecting his thoughts, and organizing them into what he would start with, staring out at the street below. 

From his peripheral, he saw Mana’s dark blue cropped leather jacket first, and her messy waves that looked like copper in the night lights. She had come up beside him, resting her forearms on the perimeter wall, staying a couple of feet away. 

After a few moments of tense silence, she turned her head to look at him with those dark blue eyes. “Hey. Sounded serious.”

Barry nodded his head and turned to face her fully, leaning against the half-wall. “Yeah. A few serious somethings.” He took a deep breath and let it out, trying to focus. “I have a couple of secrets that I want to share, and one of them is--” he faltered to swallow, “--pretty bad.”

Barry watched Mana pull herself up slightly on the wall in order to sit on it with her back to the street, then cross her ankles, and look directly at him. “I have a couple of secrets, too, but probably not the caliber of yours.”

“Tell me yours first?” Barry asked.

Mana shook her head at him. “Nuh-uh. You first.”

Another sigh escaped from Barry and he rubbed the back of his head. “This isn’t easy for me. I’m not really sure where to start.”

Mana shrugged and cantered her head towards him slightly. “The cliche is to start at the beginning, but why not start in the middle?”

Barry nodded his head. “Alright.” He squared up and looked right at her. “We have forensic proof that Dr. Wells isn’t who he says he is.” 

He then went into details about what Cisco and Joe had found in Starling City, how they’d found the mummified remains of her real uncle, who had apparently also died the same night as her aunt Tess, while watching her body language and reactions carefully as he did so. 

When Mana didn’t seem to react, short of her expression turning rather blank, Barry was confused. “You don’t seem shocked or surprised.”

“You should play Poker with me,” she evaded, then shook her head. “I’ve had fifteen years to stew over his lack of presence in my life. Now I know why, so thanks for the closure.” She looked up towards the night sky for a few moments, then looked over at him. “What else?”

“That’s it? Really?”

Mana shrugged again, rolling her left shoulder and Barry winced at the popping sound. “If you were expecting me to turn into a lump of tears and snot, you don’t know me very well.” She hopped down off the wall and dusted her hands off. “I wrote him off by the time I entered high school. Him _actually_ being a stranger instead of being one metaphorically makes me feel better in a way.”

Barry couldn’t really argue with her logic, even if it was so far in left field from what he had been expecting as a reaction. But he did have more pressing concerns and information to convey, so he filed it away in the back of his mind to revisit later.

“As for the second thing, it’s--,” Barry paused, “--Well, it’s just easier to just show you.”

He didn’t give Mana a chance to reply before he scooped her up and carried her off towards S.T.A.R. Labs in a flickering of yellow-gold trailing electricity and the scent of ozone.

As he skidded to a stop just outside the usual back doorway he took to enter and exit the facility, he set her down on her feet, holding onto her arms to make sure she didn’t fall from the sudden rush of adrenaline or speed. 

Mana’s lightweight black under-hoodie was currently on fire.

She swore and yanked off her blue leather and tossed it at him, then unzipped her hoodie and struggled out of it, throwing it to the ground and stomping on it to put the embers out, leaving her in only a sheer white ribbed tank top.

“Ah crap, I’m sorry,” he sputtered, handing her jacket to her, and trying to unsee the outline of a black bra through the semi-sheer cotton. “I always forget about that,” he trailed off, moreso to himself.

Mana was busy laughing and shrugging back into her jacket, zipping it up to ward off the chill. “Well! That’s a helluva way to tell a secret.”

Barry looked down at the hoodie, that was no longer smoking and blanched. “Seeing is believing,” he said dumbly.

“You’re not wrong,” Mana replied, picking the hoodie up and looking around, before walking next to the door and shoving it into the trashcan near it. 

His phone buzzed in his pocket and he pulled it out to read the text, then locked his phone and moved over towards the door. “I know this has been a lot of info-dumping, but I have one more thing.”

“Of course you do,” Mana snarked, folding her arms over her chest. “Spill.”

“The guy pretending to be Dr. Wells is also a speedster, and he kidnapped Eddie.” Barry pulled the door open and beckoned Mana inside. “Oh, and he killed my mother fifteen years ago.”

“That’s three things,” Mana muttered but followed after him. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Big thanks to all of you out there still reading, offering kudos and encouragement. <3


	9. The Best Laid Plans

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Mana can't handle the information overload and winds up near the pipeline. Eddie is recovered but not without a cost. Barry beats himself up over his string of failures. Arrow and Firestorm make an appearance to aid Barry against Wells.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to all of you reading, and to my wonderful beta, [enchantedlightningwrites](/users/enchantedlightningwrites). I wouldn't have gotten this far without y'all.

* * *

For someone who believes in the impossible, and writes about the theoretical and fantastic, it was still a lot to take in all at once.

In the span of an hour, Mana had learned a number of things that were now all jumbling together in her mind. She was doing her best to keep her blank expression in place, but she could feel her thoughts starting to crack like spider webbing, and her nerves fraying at the edges. And when Cisco had shown the small group the underside of not-Wells’ electric wheelchair, that it was some kind of futuristic tech that was somehow powering him like a battery. . . It seemed that even she had limits that could be reached.

“Yep, I fold,” she blurted out and started power walking out of the cortex, not paying any attention to where she was going. 

Some small part of her registered Barry and Iris trying to call after her, but she just couldn’t deal with them right now. She needed a damn minute to get her thoughts back into their little boxes, or she was gonna scream, punch someone, or pass out.

As she walked, she dug around in her purse for a tube of glucose tablets, which she had taken to carrying around the last couple of years. Low blood pressure coupled with anemia and a tendency to set aside low-priority things - like ingesting actual solid food - was a potent recipe for vertigo, which she was feeling right now. She popped one into her mouth and crunched on it with purpose, trying to stave off the oncoming feeling of lightheadedness. They tasted like orange-flavored chalk, and she hated them, but they got the job done quickly.

Her aimless walking brought her to a short corridor with a ramp that led to a rounded doorway, that reminded her of the entrance you’d see in a big-budget movie or a graphic novel, surrounded by fluorescent lighting, red-painted support beams, copious amounts of chrome piping and other materials that she couldn’t actually place in her vast mental catalog. 

“What the shit?”

Mana’s eyes skated over a touchscreen control panel and she couldn’t resist poking at it, uber-nerd that she was. It made a few blips and boops at her, and she felt some mechanism thud under her feet, followed by the hydraulic hiss of the door sliding upwards into the ceiling. 

Her feet carried her through the doorway and she barely managed to stop before she stepped over the edge into a chasm that seemed to curve on forever in either direction. 

Over the thrum of distant machinery, she could have swore she heard someone calling out.

“...hellllllp…~” 

A few pairs of footsteps came shuffling up from behind, and she looked over her shoulder, pointing into the chasm, wide-eyed. 

“I think someone is — ”.

Mana wasn’t given the chance to finish when she was yanked off her feet at breakneck speeds by a pair of yellow-clad arms.

* * *

Barry wasted no time taking off in pursuit of the Reverse Flash and Mana, barely registering Joe’s call of his name.

The two speedsters moved about the city in twin trails of yellow and red electricity, zig-zagging up and down blocks. Mana was clutched tightly in his lifelong foe’s arms, and Barry was desperately trying to catch up to them, inching closer and closer with each handful of city streets. 

He saw Mana reaching out to him, her eyes wide and the bluest shade he’d ever seen, and Barry stuck his hand out front, hoping to grab onto her. He managed to brush her fingertips and felt a jolt of static shock between them, but the Reverse Flash put on another burst of speed and took off in a blink with his human cargo.

Barry skidded to a halt in the alley and let out a guttural, frustrated yell. 

“DAMNIT!!” 

He bent forward, resting his hands on his knees and took a few moments to catch his breath, feeling like he hadn’t been breathing through the entire chase. When he could breathe again, he took off back towards the lab, a new level of anger starting to boil up in his stomach. 

As Barry came barrelling back into the cortex, he was about to say something, but drew up short, seeing Eddie sitting on the exam bed, being checked over by Caitlin and surrounded by everyone else. “Wow, Eddie, hey!”

“We found him under the trap door in the pipeline,” Cisco said and proceeded to fill Barry in on what had happened with Peek-a-Boo being released while he was giving chase.

“Where’s Mana?” Iris asked finally.

The cold fire in Barry’s belly roared back to life, and the light in his eyes turned dark. 

“I failed, again,” he ground out, pivoting abruptly and leaving the exam room towards his super suit.

“You didn’t fail again, Barry,” Joe said from behind him. “No one knew Wells was here with Eddie.”

“I’m so stupid!” Barry snapped, slamming the side of his fist into the archway that housed his suit. “I looked everywhere, except for the most obvious place! And now that murdering psychopath has Mana, and God only knows what he’s gonna do to her--”

“Bar’,” Joe tried to cut in and put his hand on Barry’s shoulder. “We’re gonna find her, just like we found Eddie. We just need a plan--”

Barry cut him off sharply with a quick motion of his hand. 

“No, Joe. I can’t just sit here and wait. I need to find her!”

“Mana can take care of herself, Barry,” came Eddie’s quiet voice from the doorway, walking with part of his weight draped around Iris’ shoulders. “She’s tougher than she looks.”

Barry turned to look at the tired blonde detective with a slightly incredulous look. He watched Iris lead Eddie over to one of the chairs at the command station and helped him ease into it. 

“Mana can take it,” Eddie confirmed darkly with a nod, a metaphorical shadow falling across his face. “If Wells gets physical, it won’t be her first time taking -- or dishing -- a beating.”

“What are you even talking about?” Barry walked over to Eddie, more fear settling into his bones at the mention of a beating.

Eddie sighed, favoring his side. “It’s not my story to tell, but trust me, she can handle herself.”

Joe came around the other side of the station and leaned his hip against the console. “Did Wells say why he took you?”

Eddie shook his head gently. “He didn’t say much; called himself Eobard Thawne, that he’s from the future, and that he and I were like family. He was mostly just working on this … tube-like thing.” He explained what it looked like, and Cisco joined in the conversation, asking more questions about it. 

Barry retreated into his mind while the conversation was happening, beating himself up over not being able to save Eddie, not being fast enough to catch Wells, and not being good enough to get Mana back. The fear in Mana’s eyes kept looking back at him every time he blinked, and it was taking everything he had not to charge off into the night to leave no stone unturned until he found her and had that asshole locked up in the pipeline. Or dead. 

He hadn’t even registered that Iris and Eddie had left, which was likely for the best.

Another set of less-shrill alarms went off, and Cisco went sprinting off to parts unknown. A few minutes of Barry, Caitlin and Joe looking at one another went by, when Cisco’s voice came through the PA system. Barry looked down at the displays with them, he saw Cisco holding up his phone’s camera to show them the tube that Eddie had talked about. 

“Looks like a power source and my best guess?” Cisco said. “We’ve got about 36 hours before the particle accelerator is fully operational.”

Barry frowned. “That’s when Wells’ll be back.”

“What happens to the meta-humans we have locked up in the pipeline?” Caitlin asked.

Cisco’s face turned sour at the thought. “They’ll be toast.”

Caitlin shook her head a few times. “We can’t let that happen. We’re the ones that put them down there; we can’t just let them die.”

A plan was forming in Barry’s head. “We won’t. I have an idea, but I need to make a few calls and … we’re gonna need Snart’s help.”

“Greaaaat…” Cisco sighed. “Help from Captain Cold, with transporting a number of crazy metas. What could possibly go wrong?” Cisco held up a finger to both Caitlin and Joe, who had been about to say something in response. “Nuh-uh. That was rhetorical.”

* * *

A pair of sneezes brought Mana back to consciousness. She sat up and sniffled, looking over at the black-clad, upright form of the man she now knew was not Harrison Wells.

“Bless you,” he said offhand.

“Thanks. I think I’m allergic to something here,” she said, sneezing a third time and sniffing again as a reflex. 

“Oh?” 

Mana looked right at him. “Must be my allergy to narcissistic assholes.”

Wells smirked at her. “Must be.”

**He’s going to kill you.**

_ No, he won’t, _ she said back to the voice.  _ He would have already if he was going to. _

This dangerous man with her beautifully-naive uncle’s face was nothing if not methodical.  _ He took me and Eddie for a reason, I just gotta find out what it is. Then we--  _ I _ can deal with it. _

“So,” she shifted a bit, testing the restraints around her wrists behind her back, disappointed to note that they seemed to be stronger than average zip ties. “What was the point of taking me when you already have Eddie?”

She saw Wells shrug his shoulders. “We never finished our conversation the other day.”

Mana snorted. “Really? All this for a fucking chat? I’ve got nothin’ to say to you.”

“Oh, but I have plenty I want to talk with you about, Mana.”

“Fuck off!”

“Now, now,” Wells meandered closer to her. “You were saying something intriguing about a ‘prodigal son’ last time.”

Mana looked away from him.

Wells came to a stop a few steps from her. “Why don’t you elaborate? I’m actually curious to see what you meant by it.”

She looked back at her captor. “If you tell me why you took me and Eddie, I’ll tell you what I meant by it.”

Wells’ smile widened by a fraction.

Mana pressed. “There’s always a reason a villain takes hostages.”

“Not always,” Wells turned away from her slightly. 

“That’s horseshit. A methodical bastard like you has’ta have a reason or seven.”

When he didn’t seem like he was going to crack, Mana tried changing tactics. “You know they’ll find us, right?” 

“I doubt it,” Wells said. “They didn’t find Eddie until you opened the door for them. Literally.”

Despite Mana’s trepidation, she feigned cool indifference. “Barry would have found him soon anyway.”

Wells shook his head and turned back to face her, hands tucked behind his back. “I let Eddie be found because I was done with him.”

“Why not take me to begin with?” Mana asked, trying her best to fish her cellphone out of her back pocket. “If Eddie served so little purpose…”

Wells’ smile widened infinitesimally. “Nice try,” he said. “You’re smarter than I gave you credit for, I’ll grant you that.”

“Pegged me for a dumb blonde, then?”

“You play the part so well.”

Mana rolled her left shoulder to pop it as a distraction as she hopefully had been able to start recording, before stuffing her phone back into her pocket.

“So, lay it out for me. Who are you really, if you’re not my uncle Harrison?”

Wells laughed. “Who says I’m not? What makes you think that?”

“Barry told me the truth,” she confessed openly. “And I believe him since my uncle wouldn’t hurt a fly, much less kidnap two people.”

“Maybe he was lying. It wouldn’t be the first time” he said airily, waving his hand in the air. 

“Don’t bother bullshitting me, Not-Wells,” she snapped. “I already know you killed my aunt and uncle, and Barry’s mom. What I don’t get--,” she paused, “--Is why?”

“The ‘why’ doesn’t matter,” he said, looking down at his own phone, then shoving it back in his jacket pocket. “I’ll get everything that I’m owed very soon.” 

“Hopefully it’s a bullet in the brain.”

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

Mana allowed herself a smile. “You bet. Even more, if it came from me.”

Wells stepped next to her and hauled her to her feet, gripping her left shoulder painfully and she winced in spite of herself. “Now, now.” He bent his head down to whisper in her ear. “You’d miss me if I were gone.”

Mana leaned her head away from him as far as she could. “Why don’t you go the fuck away and we can test your theory?”

Something pinched in the side of her neck and her vision blurred, before darkening from the edges. As she went limp in his arms, the last thing she heard was his soft whisper.

“All in good time, little one. All in good time.”

* * *

After another of the several rounds of forced unconsciousness, she woke to find what seemed like a caged animal in the form of a man. Wells was pacing around aimlessly whenever he was in … well, wherever he’d holed her and himself up in. 

He had been mostly keeping her sedated with some kind of syringe, probably so that he wouldn’t have to make uncomfortable conversation. Once or twice, when she had made a particularly snide or unflattering comment about his manhood, or lack thereof, he had knocked her cold with a backhanding to her face or a fist to her solar plexus. It was true that she could take a few hits and keep going, but he’d left her hands and feet bound at the wrists and ankles, so she was decidedly at a disadvantage, unable to defend against his onslaught.

Currently, she was pretending to still be out cold, so when he had left to get Big Belly Burger, she had fished her cell phone out of her pocket, to see what she had recorded the night before. She’d dropped it on the ground behind her and swiveled herself around to look down at it. 

Crestfallen, she realized that the battery had run out.

_ Yeah, that fucking figures after not charging it for two days. _

She crammed her phone back into her back pocket and laid back down on her side. She had been trying to wrack her brain for a reason as to why Eddie had been taken, and why she had been, as well, but so far, she was still coming up empty. 

“If I was writing this villain,” she said to herself. “Why would I do the things he was doing?”

**You mean something to The Flash.**

Mana had almost dismissed the comment, but she stopped herself. If that were true, it would make sense. Wells somehow had the notion that Barry might feel something for Mana, so if the villain took the damsel, the hero would be distracted. It was a classic fictional troupe.

“But why Eddie then?”

Mana sighed forcefully, sending a tendril of strawberry blonde fluttering. “None of this makes any fucking sense.”

Mana felt another pinprick in the side of her neck and she barely managed to get out a curse before her world went black once more, with the faint sound of sizzling electricity in her ears.

* * *

To say that the transportation of the metas didn’t go well was akin to saying Stephen Hawkings was just a smart dude. 

Although they had, in fact, managed to get the metas out of the pipeline the following night, Mardon, Peek-a-boo, Rainbow Raider, Nimbus, Leonard, and Lisa Snart were all in the wind, while Simmons was dead at Snart’s hand. Not to mention the catastrophe of the ARGUS agents who had been flying the transport plane. All in all, it was definitely a loss.

The truth of Leonard Snart’s words had sunk into the marrow of Barry’s bones, replaying over and over again. Snart was a crook, a thief, and a liar; Barry had been a fool to ever think for a moment that Snart would keep his word. And the fact that Snart hadn’t killed him when he’d had the chance was going to weigh on him until he had been able to repay the debt. He wasn’t going to blame this turn of events on distraction over Mana, though he had been distracted. The issue had been his inexperience and not thinking things through. Just as Snart had said, this failure was all on Barry, and he would own it. 

Joe had found him sometime later, wallowing in his own guilt, to let him know that Caitlin was now fine. It was a sliver of consolation to hear and only lasted for a few moments before Barry slipped back into his depression.

“Thanks for not saying ‘I told you so’,” Barry muttered.

“But I did tell you so. Repeatedly.” Joe stated matter-of-factly.

“Man.” Barry shook his head, letting his agitation spill onto his face and in his body. “I’ve seen the way Oliver does things, and he’s not afraid to do whatever it takes to get results. I thought that I could just use Snart, but instead, he used me.”

“You’re not the Arrow,” Joe said and sat down next to him. “You’re a different kinda hero. The kind that cares about if those criminals lived or died. You know that Wells using them was wrong, and you wanted to right that wrong.”

The mention of Wells settled like an anvil on Barry’s heart. “He still has Mana, and I--” he broke off, trying to swallow the lump in his throat that was pushing on his Adam’s Apple. “I have to find her before…”

“We will,” Joe clapped him on the shoulder and gave him a sturdy squeeze. “We’ll get her back, and stop him from hurting anyone else.”

“How can you be so sure?” Barry stood up then and paced a little bit up and down the ramp. “It took  _ days _ to find Eddie, and we have no idea where to look for her.”

“Easy,” Joe said, smiling slightly up at him. “I have faith in The Flash. So,” he said, standing up. “No more walks on the dark side, agreed?”

“Yeah,” Barry breathed out.

Warning alarms started blaring at them, and they looked around. 

“Guys,” Cisco’s voice came through the PA. “The particle accelerator is online and fully charged. Whatever Wells needs it for? It’s ready.”

* * *

Barry and Joe jogged back into the cortex, coming to a stop behind Cisco and Caitlin, who were looking down at the displays. 

“Ask, and ye shall receive,” Caitlin said with a sigh.

“It’s like he knows we were talking about him,” Cisco said. “Freakin’ Beetlejuice.”

Barry hadn’t said a word and was just glaring down at the monitor, his fingers clenching around the edge of the desk.

“Barry, don’t even think about it,” Joe warned. “Don’t do it.”

“You can’t go out there by yourself,” Caitlin’s voice shook a little.

“Yes I can,” Barry uttered and fleet-footed his way out to meet Wells.

“Heard your transfer didn’t go so well,” Wells said. “I’m so sorry.”

Barry shook his head, curling and uncurling his fists. “All part of your grand plan, I assume?”

Wells snickered a little. “Actually, that debacle wasn’t planned at all, but it’s pretty funny how it worked out.”

“Where is she?” Barry snapped, anger barely controlled.

Wells started to walk slowly towards him. “I know you see me as the villain, Barry, but if you look back carefully at all that I’ve done. . . Every wheel I’ve set in motion… You’ll realize I only ever did what I  _ had _ to do. Nothing more, nothing less.”

Barry scowled at him, taking a few steps as well. “What was the point of kidnapping Eddie and Mana? Hm? How does restarting the particle accelerator serve a purpose?”

Wells shoved his hands into his pockets. “Let’s go inside, and I’ll show you.”

“Nah,” Barry said. “I just learned the hard way not to trust the bad guy.”

Wells rolled his eyes. “And yet, as I’ve shown you time and time again, you can’t beat me, Barry.” 

A flare of fire settled down from above next to Barry, revealing the form of Ronnie Raymond as Firestorm, followed by the sound of metal scraping across a reinforced cable that hailed the appearance of a black-clad Oliver Queen.

“Hope we’re not too late,” Oliver said quietly to Barry, half of his face shrouded by a black hood.

“You’re right on time,” Barry nodded, then smiled tightly at Wells.

“I don’t care how fast you are. You can’t fight all three of us at the same time.”

“Challenge accepted,” Wells said, holding his left hand in a fist before him. He twisted his wrist, and from the golden ring on his finger, a suit of yellow and black sprang forth, which he charged forward into and clad himself with it.

And the battle was joined.

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At this point, the current arc has been completed and is in the final stages of review, huzzah! Thank you again to everyone reading this, I appreciate it more than you could know. <3


	10. The Calm Before

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry has Thawne captured, and they have a chat about Thawne's motives. Mana is found, and the team helps Barry weigh his options between changing the timeline or letting things go.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to all of you who have read this far, and to [enchantedlightningwrites](/users/enchantedlightningwrites) for helping me. 
> 
> We're in the endgame now. Like I mentioned a chapter or two back, there's a fair amount of overlap with the show in this and the final chapter, which I felt was necessary to accomplish one of the main goals of having written this.

* * *

The staring match between Barry and the man he knew was not the actual Harrison Wells went on for several moments. Neither man gave any comment, and both were sizing the other up. 

“What, no Big Belly Burger?” Thawne finally said. “It's one of the few perks of living in this time. We're out of cows, where I’m from.” He smirked at his protege. “But you have questions; go ahead.”

Barry stared at the brunette. “I’m not sure where to start ... Thawne. That is your real name? Eobard Thawne?”

Thawne nodded. “Since the day I was born.”

“And when was that?”

“One hundred thirty-six years from now, but that's not really what you want to know. Go ahead, Barry. Ask it.”

“Why did you kill my mother?” Barry’s voice wavered just a little.

Thawne sneered at him. “Because I hate you. Not you _now_ . You, _years from now_.”

“In the future.”

“In **_A_ ** future, yes,” Thawne emphasized. “We're enemies, rivals, opposites, reverses of one another.”

“Why were we enemies?” Barry asked.

Thawne shook his head a few times. “It doesn't matter anymore. What matters, is that neither of us was strong enough to defeat the other. Until I learned your secret. I learned your name. And finally, I knew how to defeat you once and for all.”

Barry listened to Thawne’s story, about his plan for revenge and how he’d become so enraged when Barry’s future self had thwarted his plan, which had triggered a change in strategy to killing his mother instead. He felt some measure of triumph when he’d heard that Thawne had inadvertently trapped himself in the past, and had to work for a decade and a half to fix his uncalculated mistake. It didn’t lessen the ever-present anger Barry had for Thawne, though, for having murdered his mother and shattering his family.

When Thawne was done spilling his monologue, Barry stared at him, eyes boring holes through the man. 

“Why train me? Why help me save so many people?”

Barry saw Thawne narrow his eyes and clench his fist before him. “Because I needed you to get fast! Fast enough to rupture the space-time barrier, and create a stable wormhole through which I could go home.”

“Why would I ever do that?” Barry spat.

“Because.” Thawne walked to the glass and leaned against it. “If you give me what I want, I'll give you what you want. You can go back and save your mother. You can prevent your father from going to prison. You can reunite the Allen family.”

* * *

“Jesus H. Christ,” groaned Mana when she finally woke up from the latest dosage of tranquilizer. As her eyes were still coming into focus, a voice from nowhere spoke up.   
  
“Also known as the son of God from--”

“WHAT THE FUCK!” Mana yelled at the top end of her voice, backing away from the holographic disembodied bald-headed face, who had stopped talking at her outburst.

“Good evening, Marianna Rice,” Gideon said instead, ambivalently smiling - assuming that artificial intelligence can actually smile. 

If Mana had been on the fence about believing anything Barry had told her a couple of days ago, about how Wells wasn’t who he said he was, the A.I. staring at her unblinkingly certainly gave his story some legs to stand on.

“So, like,” Mana started, rubbing at her wrists, which had chaffed something awful. “What’s your deal?”

“My name is Gideon,” the A.I. said kindly. “I’m here to watch over you.”

“Keep me locked up, you mean,” Mana muttered. When Gideon didn’t respond, she rubbed at her wrists, thankful that she wasn’t bound any longer. 

“What about peeing? Where’s the toilet?”

“...” 

“Nothing? Really? Can you like, call him about it? I’m gonna explode in about fifteen minutes.”

“I’m sorry, Ms. Rice, but there isn’t a toilet in here,” Gideon responded. “I’ll send word to Dr. Wells, for you.”

“Yeah, you do that, cause my eyes feel like they’re floating.” 

The translucent head nodded once. “Of course.”

Mana thumped her head against the wall, which reminded her absently of sitting in a Braille book. _Locked in a panic room then, eh?_ Mana snorted. _At least a real one would have a toilet, a sink, and a fridge full of alcohol or food. Clearly that bowl of dicks didn’t think this one through._

“I should have taken Harlan up on that interview in Miami after all.”

“Perhaps that would have been wise,” Gideon agreed brightly.

“Smartass,” Mana grumbled.

* * *

Cisco, Caitlin, and Joe had been watching the exchange between Barry and Thawne from the feed patched in from the pipeline hatch, with feelings ranging from disappointment to anger. 

“Wow,” Cisco breathed. “That’s some next-level quid-pro-quo right there.”

“Choosing between letting your lifelong demon away scot-free, in order to right the wrongs he committed against you...” Caitlin agreed. 

“That’s a tough call,” Joe sighed.

Cisco shook his head. “This is one of those times where I’m glad I’m _not_ Barry.”

 _“Helloooooo??”_ came Mana’s voice from the speakers, and the display flickered over to one in the Time Vault. 

_“Earth to Dickface, lemme out, you bitch, or I’m gonna die and haunt your stupid ass for eternity!”_

“Mana?!” Cisco squawked, eyes wide, and his face coming closer to the monitor.

_“Cisco! Dude! Thank God it’s you! VIKI has me trapped in--”_

“VIKI-- Ohhh, you mean Gideon,” Cisco nodded. “Hang on, I got’chu.”

_“Hurry up, yo. I’ve had to pee for hours!”_

* * *

Barry came back into the cortex with a dark look on his face, ebbing discontent from every pore. The whole encounter had left a nasty taste in his mouth and in his very being. The man had had the audacity to ask for a favor, after all of the evil that he’d done against Barry, and it galled him to know that Thawne had known the exact morsel of temptation to dangle in front of him.

He hadn’t been kidding when he told Thawne that he’d wanted to kill him. 

As stuck as he had been in his mental Planescape, hearing Mana’s voice in the other room snapped him right out of it. His eyes landed right on her, and in the blink of an eye he was next to her, a gust of wind catching up to flutter around those gathered around her a moment later.

It had been enough to show him the bruising on her jaw that was still in the bright red-blue-purple stages, as well as a new scab at the corner of her mouth, which had been curtained behind a loose strand of blonde before it settled back into place.

Peripherally, he noticed everyone else filing out of the room, leaving Mana on the biobed and Barry standing like a fool, but he didn’t have it in him to care.

Her impossibly blue eyes looked up at him, wide for a moment, before softening a little. The scab pulled as she smiled at him. 

Barry finally remembered to breathe.

“Hey,” he said dumbly.

Her smile waned, and it felt like lead settling in his heart. He watched her slide slowly off of the bed, eyes somewhat glaring at him now.

“Why’re you lookin’ at me, like you want me to kick your ass?”

Barry took half a step back. “W-what?”

Mana folded her arms over her chest and leaned against the bed behind her. “Your face, Barry. It was like, screaming for a punch.”

It was kind of amazing, just how easily Mana could read him. He had, in fact, been feeling guilt and remorse, and it wasn’t really any wonder that his emotions had shown on his face.

Barry shook his head and held up his hands placatingly. “I don’t _want_ to be hit, but I wouldn’t have stopped you from it.”

“Nah,” Mana said. “No self-deprecation. What matters is that it’s over, right? I’m safe, Joe and Eddie are safe… everyone’s good. You did good, Barry.”

“It’s not over,” Barry blurted out, carding his fingers through his hair. “Not by a long shot.” 

He heard some chattering out in the main area and looked over his shoulder, then back at Mana. He gave her the rundown of what Thawne had said to him a bit ago; about the admission of him being from the distant future, the plan he’d been forced to set into motion, and about the ultimatum.

“Part of me wants to end him, today. Be done with him forever.” Barry confessed to her quietly, rubbing at the back of his neck. 

“And I’d be glad to help you with that, but it wouldn’t negate the rage,” Mana said evenly, though he saw her eyes flicker with an edge to them -- one that he recognized in his own reflection in the window glass, as he stared out into the cortex.

She came up to stand next to him, hooking her arm through his at the crook of his elbow. “That saying, ‘An eye for an eye’, is complete bullshit. Revenge is for the weak of will, even though it’s _really_ fucking tempting.”

Barry saw Joe waving to them to join the rest of the group, and he nodded once. “Let’s go out there,” he said to his companion. 

“Ladies first,” Mana replied with a cheeky smile.

Barry smiled in return for a few moments, before leading the way. “I’ll let that slide for now.”

“Yes ma’am.” Mana slapped him on the back as they headed through the door. 

* * *

“Quite the paradox Harrison has presented you with, Mr. Allen,” Martin stated, as Barry entered the room.

“Seems pretty cut and dry to me,” Caitlin commented, leaning into Ronnie.

“At first blush, Dr. Snow, it would appear that way,” Martin continued. “But this gift has unparalleled risk.”

“If by ‘gift’ you mean ‘trap’, then sure.” Mana shook her head, folding her arms.

Martin took a few steps towards Barry. “The night your mother died -- the night you saved your younger self from being killed -- that event altered the timeline you were already on and changed the course of history.”

Cisco scrunched up his face a little. “So, you’re saying we’re already living in a parallel universe.”

Barry nodded his head, sighing. “Just like when I time-traveled before.”

“B-but he only changed one day that time…” Joe said, concerned.

“Hold up,” Mana said from behind Barry. 

As Barry turned, he felt his sweatshirt yanked and he stumbled to get his footing. “Whoa.”

“That was _real_ then?!” Mana demanded, shaking him slightly. 

“What do you mean?”

Mana let go of his shirt and sighed, bending her head forward and rubbing her scalp with her fingers roughly. “Fuckin’ A, I thought I was nuts…”

When she looked up at him again, she was bordering on angry, and pointing a finger into his chest. “You’re cute, but you have gotta be the dumbest smart person I know. The fact that you reset the timeline, and then you _made changes to it_ , is proof of that!”

“What was I supposed to do?” Barry’s voice rose slightly. “I couldn’t let--”

Mana had covered his mouth with her hand. “Stop. Not another word.”

The petulant child in him wanted to lick her hand to make her let go.

“Before I let go, did you already spill the fucking beans about that day?”

Barry nodded slightly, wide-eyed.

Mana’s hand slipped from his face. 

“But… how… I never… told you...” he said haltingly.

“I dunno how, but I remember that whole day, that no one else seems to remember.”

“Astonishing,” Martin said with wonder. “I’m curious to know how that’s even possible.” Barry watched Martin come up to stand next to Mana with a slight smile on his face. “Are you perhaps a meta-human as well, Ms…”

“Rice. Mana Rice,” Mana supplied, turning to offer Martin her hand, which was gladly accepted. 

“And I doubt I’m a meta, Professor Stein. I do, however, know that you know a lot about time travel, and I’ve used some of your papers as references for my books,” she admitted, gushing as if she had met an idol of hers.

“Really…” Martin lit up like Chaunnakah had come early. “What books are those, my dear?”

“Have you heard of Marina Canier?”

“Why yes, I have!”

“Guys,” Joe cut in with Dad Voice. “Can we get back to the issue at hand here?”

“Yes, of course, Detective,” Martin said, clearing his throat, but offering one more smile to Mana.

“So, Mr. Allen,” Martin looked to Barry. “You changed one day, but imagine fifteen years of compounded experience. One different decision, no matter how big or small, affects everything that follows.”

“The Butterfly Effect,” Mana added, nodding her head. “A butterfly flapping its wings in like, China, could potentially cause a hurricane in Florida.” She looked over at the rest of them. “Er … Marty and the photograph?”

“Great reference,” Cisco said, giving Mana the thumbs up.

“Exactly right,” Martin agreed. “All the things you have done now, all the relationships, experiences, and the knowledge you’ve acquired to this point would be gone, and you’d never even know it because you wouldn’t remember it.”

Barry sighed, rubbing his face. “Okay, so, if I go back and save my mom, my dad doesn’t go to prison.” He looked over at Joe. “I never go to live with Joe and Iris.”

“You might never meet me,” Cisco said slowly. “Or Caitlin or Ronnie.”

“Or me,” Mana said.

“The truth is,” Martin added. “There’s no way to be certain what your life will be like.”

Barry looked helplessly to Joe, begging him to be told what he should do with simply the expression on his face.

Joe shrugged his shoulders and looked right back at him. “There’s no choice here, Barry. You have to do it. You gotta change the past.” He picked up his coat and walked out of the cortex a moment later.

Barry felt a slap on his back and looked over at Mana, who was smiling at him, jutting her chin towards the door. He took the cue and jogged after Joe.

* * *

After his brief chat with Joe near the elevators, Barry was becoming more and more convinced that he should take the offer. He wasn’t stupid and knew that he would lose a lot by doing so, but the reward of having his mother back in his life, and his dad never having gone to prison was too attractive to ignore.

The conversation later with Henry had him feeling even more confused and upset. He couldn’t believe that his father had told him not to go through with it. The very idea that he hadn’t wanted the past fixed and Nora saved had completely floored Barry. He had been so certain that it was the one vote he could count on to convince him to do it.

And then there had been the chat with Iris after he’d returned from Iron Heights. She had refrained from telling him what she thought he should do, when he had told her that he needed someone to make the decision for him.

“I think for once, you should stop thinking about everyone else, and think about yourself. You should do what you think is best for you,” Iris had said carefully.

Then she had clapped him on the shoulder. “And, I think you should talk to Mana. Like, now.”

_Mana…_

“Yeah,” he had nodded. “Yeah, I should.”

Which was why he was now waiting outside of her condo highrise, just as he had been not long ago, waiting for their date that had been tragically cut short.

Four little words pulled him out of his abyss of thought.

“I need a drink.”

Despite the current state of things, Barry found himself laughing at that. “Sounds good.”

Her slender fingers with their chipped white polish wormed their way between his torso and elbow, and she locked their arms together, pulling him gently along at her pace, and he simply let her lead them away.

“You look like you could use a few dozen shots,” she said absently, offering him a wan smile.

“I can’t get drunk anymore,” he sighed. “I metabolize it too fast.”

“Well, fuck,” she sighed dramatically. “I’d give it up if I couldn’t get drunk.”

“Right?”

He felt Mana pat his arm a few times, smirking up at him. “I’ll drink enough for the both of us.”

“Thank you,” he said, feeling the slight distraction of the small talk giving way to the seriousness of the issue that now plagued his mind.

The two of them ducked into the same bar that had karaoke, where they had embarrassed themselves months ago. He allowed Mana enough time to order a pair of Patron shots and down them like water, licking salt from the thenal webspace of her right hand, then sucking on a lime wedge.

“Oof,” she said, shaking her head. “Okay, that’s better. I’m ready now.” She looked up into his eyes squarely, and her expression cleared to a blank canvas. 

“For what?” he said.

“For the real question simmering behind your eyes,” she replied, waving down the bartender and holding up three fingers.

Barry then felt her fingers lacing with his own before being pulled towards a vacant table near the wall that was somewhat secluded. Mana practically pulled them down onto the bench, thigh to thigh, and gave his hand a squeeze, and angled herself to face him partially.

“I’m all ears, Barry. No judgments. What’s on your mind?”

Her words opened the floodgates for him.

Barry gave her the Cliff’s Notes version of each of the conversations he had had with Joe, Henry and Iris, coloring it with his own thoughts and insecurities about what he thought about the varying shades of advice. There had been one vote for doing it, one vehemently against it, and then a non-committal response. He confessed his frustrations at being no better off than he had some hours earlier, and his inability to make the decision.

When he was finished, he breathed out slowly, and looked back at Mana, noting that she had polished off three more shots, and her vision was barely clouded, which impressed him. For someone who barely weighed a buck thirty-five, she was scarily able to hold her liquor.

“So,” she said finally. “You gonna do it?”

“I want to,” he said honestly. “But what I want isn’t necessarily the right thing.”

“True.”

“I would do anything to have my mom back again. To keep my dad from going to prison for it.”

Mana nodded, her shoulders dropping a little. “Yeah, I get that, better than most,” she barely whispered.

Barry squeezed her hand a little, and she offered him a smile.

“What do you think I should do? I need someone to tell me,” he asked her the same question he had asked Iris. Secretly hoping for another version of the answer that was more definitive than the last.

“I’m not going to tell you what to do, Barry,” Mana said flat out. She shifted herself to sit flush with him again, leaning her head on his shoulder. “I can only help lay out the facts for you.”

“I’d rather you tell me what to do,” he muttered.

She seemed to ignore his comment. “On the one hand, you’d have your mom alive. In theory, you could safely assume that your dad never goes to prison for her murder.”

“Right.”

“But that’s really the only assurance you would have,” she continued. “Nothing else that happens in the following fifteen years is guaranteed.” 

Mana shifted a little next to him, taking a moment to sip at the Corona that had been set down in front of her, and Barry reached for the other, if for no other reason, but to wet his parched throat.

Mana settled her beer bottle on the table. “You could wind up slinging burgers at Big Belly Burger, or an astrophysicist at JPL, or some other damn thing, friendless and alone, but you’d have your folks. 

“But what if your Dad still ends up in jail for something else? Maybe he … I dunno … makes an honest mistake with surgery and he’s jailed for malpractice, or maybe your mom is murdered in a bank robbery anyway. And then there’s the likelihood that you wouldn’t end up as The Flash, either.”

Barry felt his stomach drop at both of those notions.

She looked right up at him, and her eyes bore into his soul.

“Time has a way of snapping back when it’s messed with. You should know that better than anyone. The tidal wave may have been stopped and the city saved, but it still cost you something.”

“I know,” he sighed, downing the rest of his beer in a few swallows. He felt the effects of the beer for a nanosecond before it ebbed away. 

“So, what… You’re saying I shouldn’t do it?”

“I’m not saying that.” Mana knocked her head into his shoulder, and he felt her grip tighten in his. “But I’m not _not_ saying it, either.”

“That’s really unhelpful,” he all but whined.

* * *


	11. Black Hole Sun

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Barry decides to travel to the past to save his mom. He learns something about Mana that makes him pause, but ultimately decides to do it. When he returns without having followed through, all Hell breaks loose over Central City.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The finale to the first arc of [The Timeline is Malleable](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1786675) series!

The decision to go was finally made, and it had been an agonizing one for Barry. Or, at least that’s what Mana had ferreted out. She wasn’t sure she’d have been able to make it if it had been her.

She stood next to Barry as he was staring out into the pipeline, adjusting his gloves. For a change of pace, Mana had been wearing something much more form-fitting than her usual jeans and sweatshirts. She’d rushed over from a meeting with her publishers and was currently wearing a pair of dark black skinny jeans without any rips in them, and a cap-sleeved mock turtleneck in midnight blue with wisps of silver at the hem. The top had a peek-a-boo teardrop cut out at her clavicle. 

Her arms were bare for once, allowing half of what looked like feathery wing tattoos on either shoulder edged in bright reds and oranges to show. The rest of the tattoos were hidden behind the closed back of her top. 

“Tattoos, huh?” she heard Barry said next to her, arching his brow and smiling at her. He brushed her loose wavy hair away from her left shoulder for a better look. “Didn’t notice them the other night.”

“I’m actually a fallen angel, you know,” she murmured and winked at him. “Our wings look like tattoos when we’re on Earth.”

“They look more like phoenix feathers.”

Mana shrugged, patting his fingers on his shoulder. “The Phoenix is basically immortal. It always comes back to life after death.”

“Fair enough.” Barry nodded, then moved to pull his cowl up over his head.

Mana stopped him before he could, and he offered her a questioning look.

“Are you sure this is the best thing to do?”

Barry frowned slightly at her, then put both of his hands on her shoulders. 

Mana reached up to grip his leather-clad wrists.

“I have to try,” he said simply. “If you could save your mom, wouldn’t you try, too?”

Mana sighed, bowing her head. “Of course I would. I’m just…”

“What is it?”

“I have the worst timing, saying this, but…” Mana looked back up at him. “When you reset time last time, it physically made me ill.”

Barry’s grip on her shoulders tightened. “Why didn’t you say anything before?”

“I thought it was from the beers at the bowling alley!” she sighed, staring up at him searchingly. “I thought I was a fucking nutcase and I was imaging it, man! How was I s’posed to know it was related?”

“Oh God,” Barry breathed, wrapping himself around her and she felt him bury his face into her hair. “Resetting one day made you sick, what’s it going to do if you suddenly have fifteen years shoved into your mind?”

“It’ll put her into a coma,” came Thawne’s voice from his cell. “Or kill her. Could go either way. I’m betting on the latter.”

Both Mana and Barry broke away from one another and turned to look at him with matching looks of murderous intent.

“ _Wooooow_ ,” Thawne chuckled. “Death glares in two-tone. That’s kind of awesome.”

“Come out of there, Thawne,” Mana smirked darkly. “I’ve got steel-toed ass-kickers on today. I’ll be glad to show your ‘nads the process of how to make peanut butter.”

“Oooohohoho!” Thawne laughed heartily. “That sounds like a lot of fun, Little One, but you’re about a hundred years too early to take me on.”

“I’m re-thinking my offer to help you kill him,” Mana asked Barry under her breath.

“A deal is a deal,” he lamented quietly to her.

Mana snorted in derision. “You’re too nice.”

Everyone else started to file in to give Barry their well-wishes, and Mana took a step back, watching things unfold while keeping half an eye on Thawne’s cell.

“Okay,” she heard Cisco say. “There are gonna be three you’s back there. The you from the future that saves younger you from the Reverse Flash, and _you_ you.”

Cisco patted Barry on the shoulder. “Remember; wait until future you saves younger you, and then you can go and save your mom. Got it?”

Barry nodded his head and flashed a smile. “Easy peasy.”

Mana watched him give some quiet words to Joe and a hug, then she looked away as Iris wished him well, kissing his forehead.

**Stop him.**

Mana combed her fingers through her hair. _It’s too late for that._

Barry was in front of her now, and she looked up into his eyes with a forced smile.

“Don’t fuck it up,” she said, crossing her arms and smirking at him.

“I don’t plan to.”

The two of them stared at one another, and Mana was trying to read all the things that flitted past his eyes that he wasn’t saying. She could see some regret, and some doubt, but she could also see some hope that was flickering there, growing steadily like an approaching wildfire on the horizon. She felt her smile turn a little less forced and a bit more genuine, and she brought her hands up to either side of his face, then pinched his cheeks and pulled them apart. 

She felt Barry chuckle through the face she was making him make, and let go, before slapping him on the chest.

While they were both in their little more-than-friendly bubble, someone cleared their throat pointedly.

Mana glared at Martin.

“Real subtle,” Ronnie said resignedly, clapping Martin on the back.

Mana heard Barry clear his throat as well, and he smiled brightly behind a blush he wasn’t bothering to try to hide when she looked back at him.

“Kick his ass, man. Like twice.” 

She watched Barry step through the doorway and heard Cisco closing it from the control panel. Once the door latched closed, she stared at it for a moment, then made her way back to the cortex to join the rest of them.

_This is a mistake._

“Remember, Mr. Allen--” Stein’s voice came through the PA system, “--Assuming you achieve the proper velocity and open the wormhole, you will only have one minute and fifty-two seconds to save your mother and return.”

**Save the Detective.**

_What?_

Mana looked over at Joe first from her spot behind the console, watching him rub absently at his beard, and then over at Eddie, who was standing next to Cisco.

_There are two detectives here, you’ll have to be more specific._

* * *

As Barry surpassed Mach-Two, he started to see strange visions, both of the past and presumably of the future, which seemed to distract him a little.

_A young Iris smiling as Joe brought Barry home that first night…_

“Barry,” Thawne’s voice came through his comms. “What you’re seeing is the Speed Force: your past, present, and future, all at once.”

_A white-haired woman in a blue corset, shooting ice from her fingers…_

_Mana looking down at him, her hands on the chest of his suit, eyes filled with fear..._

_A golden statue of The Flash outside a building with white columns…_

“So, you need to focus on where and when you want to go.”

_Himself sitting in an Iron Heights Prison jumpsuit, behind glass, talking with Joe…_

_The roof of a building being crushed through, by what looked like a robotic boot…_

_A woman in a dark aqua suit, with green and white arcs of electricity up her forearms..._

_Sara, Snart, and Ray in his ATOM suit, standing together, looking ready for a fight…_

“Think about that night … About your mother.”

_And then that fateful night that had set his current life on its path…_

Bary could hear his younger self screaming for his mother. He could see this scene with crystal clarity, whereas the other scenes seemed blurred at the edges. That made sense to him.

It was the scene he was most familiar with and still haunted his nightmares.

“It’s working,” Thawne said, and Barry could hear the smile in his voice.

“Inject the hydrogen particle now.”

It was the last thing Barry heard before he disappeared from the Pipeline.

* * *

The clock was started, and Mana started to walk back towards the pipeline with Cisco and Joe, brushing past Eddie on her way.

“You should stay, Mana,” she heard Joe tell her, but she shook her head.

“Not a chance. I still need to have a pointed conversation with Judas before he disappears for good.”

Mana stepped through the door to the pipeline, to see the time sphere in position, with Thawne, decked out in his black and yellow suit. She climbed down a small metal ladder to the side of the catwalk, and stomped over to him, scowling.

“Yo. You owe me answers, dickwad.”

“Sure, why not,” he said simply.

“Why kidnap me, Thawne? Why keep me sedated? What was the fucking point?”

Thawne stared at her for a couple of seconds, then walked slowly around the sphere, inspecting it. 

“Simple, really. I saw another opportunity to unhinge Barry, so I took it. And it worked.”

Mana reached out to grip his arm. “You killed his mom, my aunt, and my uncle, you son of a bitch!”

“And then I gave Barry the chance to fix that, so you should be happy!” he smirked.

Mana punched him in the face, and she felt a sense of joy at seeing him stumble from it, despite the agony in her fingers, which was well and truly worth it.

“Not happy then,” he said, wiping the corner of his mouth with a gloved thumb. “Got it.”

“Get in your damn bubble pod and get the fuck out of our time!” 

The wormhole flared up then, and a silver old-timey looking helmet was spit through, clattering as it tumbled to a stop at their feet.

“What the hell is that…” Joe muttered, staring at the item.

“That’s my queue to leave,” Thawne responded.

Mana watched as he thanked Cisco, who told him a variant of what she had just said, before he looked back over at her, winked, then entered his sphere.

As it closed, and he started the ignition sequence, he looked right at Mana again.

“Who said it was only sedation?”

“ _What?!_ What did you do to me, you f--”

The wormhole flared again, and this time the form of The Flash came barrelling through it. He didn’t stop, and crashed right through the time sphere, shattering it and sending everyone tumbling away from the destruction.

Mana was knocked into the inside wall a few feet behind her, jarring her hip and arm, the wind knocked out of her. She heard a few of the others groaning as she coughed, trying to force air back into her lungs.

“You didn’t save her,” Thawne gasped out, glaring at Barry. “Why didn’t you save her?!”

Thawne stood up and shoved a section of the sphere off of him. “You could have had the life you wanted. You could have had everything you wanted!!” He practically howled.

Barry glanced over at Joe, then Cisco, and finally at Mana.

“I already do.”

Thawne pulled his cowl up over his head, and his eyes lit red, while his form blurred.

“Not for long.”

Mana backed away from the two as they fought at high speed. She couldn’t even keep up with the movements; all she could see was flares of red and orange-yellow. She could hear grunts and what sounded like fists connecting with bodies and smell the sharp scent of ozone.

The wormhole collapsed in on itself and vanished with a slight pop.

**Save the Detective.**

Mana immediately looked to Joe, who seemed to be doing fine, but in her peripheral vision, she saw the blonde head of Eddie come into view.

And saw him reach for his gun.

_Oh, God._

Mana dashed for him and clamped her good hand over his wrist, as he was pointing the muzzle at his chest, and struggled with it.

“NO!”

The gun went off, and everything paused in the echo of the shot, including the two speedsters’ fight.

Mana yanked the gun away from Eddie’s hand, staring at the bullet wound in his left shoulder, just above his clavicle. He stumbled back and hit the ground on his knees.

Two inches lower, and it would have been fatal.

Mana turned then and brought the gun up, aimed directly at Thawne’s leg, and squeezed the trigger.

The bullet embedded itself into the ground and her query was nowhere to be seen.

“Dammit!” she yelled, shoving the gun into the waistband behind her back, wincing at the heat of the barrel against her skin, and then turned towards Eddie.

“You stupid cop,” she muttered, tearing the bottom half of her top away, and shoved it against his shoulder. 

“Wanted to be her hero,” she heard Eddie mutter before his eyes rolled up into his head.

Mana’s expression softened slightly. “You can’t be her hero if you’re fucking _dead._ ”

Iris came skidding to a stop next to Eddie and started to babble at him about being reckless, but he was already unconscious.

“He’s fine, baby,” Joe said, putting his arm around Iris. “He’ll be fine, but we gotta get him to the hospital.”

Barry came over to them. “I can run him there.”

“Uh--” Cisco was looking behind the small group around Eddie, “--I think we got issues that we need you here for, man.”

Everyone else looked over their shoulders at the wormhole that was opening back up.

“Fuck,” Mana swore and looked back at Barry.

He seemed to understand what she was saying, and he started the process of flash-stepping everyone out in pairs. First Iris and Eddie, then Cisco and Joe. Mana was then scooped up in his arms and carried outside the facility where everyone else was gathering, before being set down on her feet.

She gripped onto his arm and looked up at the black hole that was opening up over the city. Caitlin, Ronnie, and Martin came out of the door shortly after.

“So, that’s what we didn’t want to happen,” Cisco stated the obvious.

Caitlin angled her head upwards. “What’s it doing?” 

“Feeding,” Mana said, gripping onto Barry’s arm a little tighter.

“The singularity won’t stop, even after it swallows the Earth,” Martin added.

Mana and company could hear the distant sounds of screaming and car horns blaring, along with the screeching of metal from skyscrapers being torn apart like paper mache.

Martin frowned up at the sky. “I’m afraid the accretion disc has already assembled…” 

“The what?” Joe asked.

“The diffuse material that’s in orbital motion around the singularity,” Martin elaborated, which didn’t seem to help.

Mana looked over at Joe and made a spinning motion with her index finger. “The shit being pulled in around the mouth of the black hole.”

“Precisely.”

“What does that mean though?” Caitlin asked.

“We have to disrupt the motion,” Barry finally said. “Basically it’s like the tornado, only upside down. And bigger. _And scarier_.”

Martin came up to stand next to Mana and Barry. “That event has an energy level of at least six-point-seven Tera Electron Volts. It cannot be stopped any longer!”

Mana saw Barry look right at her, and the apology in his eyes. 

“I have to try.”

_No…_

_Don’t go…_

Mana put on a brave smile, reached her hands up to Barry’s neck and pulled his cowl back up over his head, settling his mask into place, and wiping the blood from the corner of his mouth.

“Run, Barry. Run.”

He took one more look at all of them, then his eyes settled back on Mana. The sage green flickered gold for a moment, and then he sped away from them.

Mana stared at the apogee of the singularity and saw a streak of yellow-gold seeming to fly upwards towards it. She lost sight of it for a few moments, but then she could see a ring of light surrounding the mouth of it.

Cisco held his phone up to his face. “Barry, it’s stabilized now. Keep doing what you’re doing, man.”

“ _I don’t know how much longer I can keep going,_ ” came Barry's wind-whipped voice, already sounding tired.

**It won’t be enough.**

“It won’t be enough,” Mana echoed the voice that spoke in her mind, then turned to Martin. “Will it?”

Martin shook his head, staring upwards. “He’s stabilized it, but in order to stop it completely, we have to merge the inner and outer event horizons.”

“How do we do that?” Ronnie shouted over the deafening noise.

Mana saw Martin turn towards his other half with a grim set to his features. 

“By separating in the eye of it. The amount of energy by the fissure should be enough.”

“No,” Caitlin said immediately, gripping onto her new husband. “It’s too dangerous. What if you can’t escape the inrush?”

“Cait,” Ronnie smiled at her. “Barry’s up there risking his life for everyone. We have to try.”

Ronnie and Martin merged into Firestorm and took off towards the black hole above.

From below, Mana, Caitlin, Cisco, Joe, and Iris watched with bated breath for several agonizing moments, before the mother of all explosions anyone had ever seen or heard outside of a World War bombing went off in the sky, sending debris rocketing back towards the ground, and a black cloud peppered with flames rushing outward from the epicenter. 

As Mana stared searchingly across the sky, she caught no sign of electricity or pairs of fire trails in the falling detritus.

 _This can’t be happening…_

Caitlin screamed for Ronnie next to Mana and then fell to her knees.

Mana followed right after.

_They have to be alive… He has to have survived…_

Mana demanded that the voice that had been giving her less than clear and helpful comments for months. _Tell me they’re alive, damn you! I can’t take more death in my life! I can’t!_

The voice never responded.

* * *

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That's a wrap! Thank you so much to all of you who have gotten this far, for the kudos, comments and for reading. This is officially the first multi-part fanfic that I have ever posted, that has reached a conclusion, and I'm so excited!
> 
> Thanks so much to [enchantedlightningwrites](/users/enchantedlightningwrites) for all of the help you gave me this summer on this beast; I can't stress how much I appreciate you!


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